call the ocean waves ashore
by XxZuiliu
Summary: Funny, the things people do in the name of Glory. [OC-centric, reborn!OC, eSports!OC, starts pre-canon, AU][QZGS]
1. 01: sea foam, saltwater spray

Title: call the ocean waves ashore

Rating: T

Summary: Funny, the things people do in the name of Glory. [OC-centric, eSports!OC, starts pre-canon, AU]

Warnings: None.

(AN at bottom.)

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 **call the ocean waves ashore**

" _01: sea foam, saltwater spray"_

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August 21st, 2002.

Xia Lan is born on a clear summer morning to Xia Hong and Wu Yueru in a quiet hospital of B City, China. The timely birth of their first child is the only reason why the headstrong young couple finally decides to put down recent thoughts of divorce, and cautiously give their sinking ship of a marriage another go.

"For our daughter," is what Wu Yueru says to her husband, mouth set in a determined line. "Maybe we should try giving this another shot. What do you say?"

Xia Hong nods silently in response, and that is that.

For the two young parents, at least.

On Xia Lan's part, she can only express complete and utter confusion. There are few things more disconcerting than suddenly waking up one day, only to find yourself regressed to the body of a newborn infant in some parallel reality. It takes a good five years of sorting out jumbled memories that sporadically flicker in and fade out for her to finally piece things together and make any real sense out of her strange, surreal situation.

… She's still not quite sure what to make of this whole 'being reborn' business, even now. Some strange quirk of the universe, perhaps?

The girl tries not to think too much on it.

At any rate, from the looks of things this alternate world seems to be more or less the same as her previous one, by and large. Certain changes in political policies and technological advancements aside, that is. Thankfully, there's none of the whole 'life-threatening fantasy world'-shtick going on here. Being thrown off the deep end into a hazardous world of fire-breathing dragons or superhuman ninjas would be… problematic.

(What a nightmarish thought _._ )

Her new appearance is plain, simple. Feathery ash-black hair coupled by soot-black eyes, utterly unremarkable in every respect and virtually indistinguishable from any of the other girls in her preschool class. That's fine. Xia Lan has never been one to overly care for her appearance. It's a definite shame to her mother's genes, though; Wu Yueru herself is quite the classical Chinese beauty.

As a young aspiring author, it's not an uncommon sight to see Wu Yueru daintily poised over her books and tirelessly going through her handwritten manuscripts with a cluster of multicolored pens in hand. Xia Lan doesn't really understand much about it, though. Even with all the Chinese poetry that her mother is strangely insistent on stuffing down her throat, she's never really been much for literature. Her father, Xia Hong, doesn't seem to be much interested in literature, either, but the busy lawyer is out of the house so often that Xia Lan admittedly doesn't know very much about the man's interests and hobbies at all –if he even has any in the first place. The man is a complete workaholic. It's always court case after court case for him, and…

And it's not hard to see _why_ Wu Yueru might be upset with him nearly all the time, what with the way he's always out and about and never at home, but the quiet man provides for them with nary a word of complaint, even after the worst arguments with his wife. Xia Lan, a once-college student who'd had to support her own tuition and living expenses, can certainly appreciate that… if not approve of his methods entirely.

Honestly, she doesn't really understand why the two had a child together in the first place, if the majority of their attentions is always focused on picking arguments with each other whenever they're standing in the same room. It's probably a good thing that Xia Lan isn't _really_ a child who needs the constant care and attentive guidance of her parents; heavens knows how an actual child would've turned out in an environment like this…

Irresponsible. How irresponsible of them.

… But at the same time, it's not something Xia Lan faults her new parents for with any real heat, because the truth of the matter is –she doesn't _need_ them, not the way children usually need their parents, so it's a moot point, in the end. If anything, the hands-off approach is even relieving, in a way; Xia Lan isn't sure how well she'd deal with actually being treated like the young child she currently is.

(Not).

To the outer world, though, Xia Hong and Wu Yueru are excellent parents who have done a great job in raising their daughter. After all, Xia Lan is a remarkably quiet and well-mannered child who doesn't kick up any fuss the way her preschool counterparts are wont to do; every parent-teacher conference will somehow bring out a mention of Xia Lan being so _well-behaved_ and _responsible–_

But the truth of the matter is, her behavior, her character, her personality… none of it has anything to do with Xia Hong and Wu Yueru's 'attentive upraising.'

Wu Yueru might smile demurely with a faint flicker of self-satisfaction at the praise she hears, but Xia Hong is a little sharper; by the time Xia Lan is seven years old, he treats her almost like a mini-adult, if with the occasional childish indulgences.

Which is fine, she _is_ his daughter…

Maybe it's because they are her parents by blood, that any oddities are overlooked and passed over for personal quirks. It helps that Xia Lan does not go out of her way to flaunt her cognitive superiority over her peers, instead preferring to let attention gather and slide off from her like water does the feathers of a duckling. To date, her father only thinks of her as an unusually self-sufficient child, which isn't _wrong,_ but neither is it entirely right, because–

Xia Lan is not a child.

College graduate. Junior data analyst, working at a respectable firm. And now, seven year old elementary school student.

It's… a bit of a drastic change from what she was once used to, to say the least. Quite the change.

She doesn't have any friends at school, which isn't surprising. Acquaintances, perhaps, but she only uses the term very loosely –mostly, Xia Lan has a couple of neighbors that she walks to school with, and a few familiar faces that she does school projects with. It's the most she can handle without feeling the need to throttle any of the little mischief-making munchkins.

"How was school today? Did you make some good progress on your project in your study group?"

"… Fine." Xia Lan pauses in the doorway, glancing over at her mother. The woman appears as serene as ever, shuffling the drafts on her desk as she carefully tucks a pen behind her ear, but Xia Lan also sees the way there are faint bags under the woman's eyes, and how the screen of her cellphone is lit up by several missed calls all from the same number. A very distinctive number, one that Xia Hong had personally typed into the cellphone that he'd handed to Xia Lan herself and told her to keep on her person at all times.

"Good, good." Wu Yueru's attention slides away from her daughter, and the woman adjusts her glasses, smiling softly. "Dinner will be here soon. I've ordered takeout from _Meizhou_ tonight; it should be delivered sometime in the next half hour."

"Okay." Should she ask? Judging by what she's seen so far… "Should we wait for dad to come home before eating?"

Something in the edge of Wu Yueru's gentle smile cracks, turns thin and ice-like, bitter and jagged. "No, he's too busy. Your father will be out getting dinner with some of his associates tonight. Again. There's no point in waiting for him. Go clean up, Lanlan. Remember to wash your hands."

The unresolved tension festering between her parents finally comes to a head the year she turns eight years old; after a rather spectacularly explosive argument at 2AM in the living room, the two finally drop what little tattered pieces remain of their unconvincing pretense of being a happy family.

To be honest, it's been a long time coming. Inevitable, unavoidable.

" _It's always work work work work work with you! When was the last time you came home and spent time with your daughter, you heartless man? Why don't you just go and marry your job already! I should never have married you in the first place!"_

" _I work so you and Lanlan can live comfortably; what will it take for you to finally see that? Why don't you understand?"_

It's a rather messy affair, even more so when new arguments spring afresh when it comes to the details dividing the finances. In the end, they even take things to court, which is surprising; Xia Hong is a lawyer himself, after all. He knows the rules, the loopholes, has the connections.

In a stunning upset, Wu Yueru gains custody of the child and a good portion of their shared finances. Subsequently, the woman promptly decides to move out of the country.

"There are better opportunities in the US," is what the woman tells her, a new fire burning alight in her eyes. That might be true, but Xia Lan is certain that there's more reasoning to her decision than that pitiful explanation.

It doesn't bother her quite as much as it should've; a normal child might've balked at the thought of uprooting their life to leave for an entirely different _country,_ but Xia Lan just nods and asks when they will be leaving. It's probably a little rusty by this point, but at least she knows how to speak the language, courtesy of a previous non-life.

The answer she receives from her mother is, "As soon as possible."

Despite everything, in the end Xia Hong still sees them off at the airport. Wu Yueru turns to the side and refuses to acknowledge her former husband's presence, but does not stop him from stooping down to Xia Lan's height and patting the little girl's shoulder.

"Take care of yourself," Xia Hong says simply to her, only a brief hesitance before the words spill out from his mouth and his gaze lowers to the side. Xia Lan stares silently at the man, feels the way his calloused fingers linger on her shoulder, and finally responds with a vague sound of assent.

"I wish you all the best, dad."

It's minuscule, but the man _flinches_. She is not the only one to notice; from the side, Wu Yueru is no longer able to hold her silence. The woman snorts derisively, then takes Xia Lan's hand in her own and tugs the girl away.

"There's no need to say that to someone like _him._ We're leaving, Lanlan. Good riddance!"

Xia Lan turns, giving her father a small wave. For a moment, it seems like the man raises his own hand in a responding farewell, but Wu Yueru only tightens her grip on her hand and quickens her pace. Xia Lan stumbles, the crowd closes in around them, and she loses sight of the quiet man in a heartbeat.

"We're better off without someone like him," her mother tells her, once they're boarded on the plane and awaiting takeoff. "You're still young, so you might not understand it yet… but you'll see. This is for the best. I'm sorry."

Maybe there are some details about the mess between Xia Hong and Wu Yueru that escape her, but it's not like Xia Lan is _really_ an oblivious eight year old girl. Her parents' court case… with Xia Hong's abilities, there is no way such a well-respected lawyer like him would've lost a case against his aspiring-writer, stay-at-home wife, unless it was deliberate. Or at the very least, he could've put up a much stronger struggle to prolong the case, delay the final decision in deciding the custody of the child, if that was what he truly cared for.

Handing Wu Yueru most of their shared finances… something about it reads more as _apology_ than lack of ability to Xia Lan. Her mother is not entirely wrong in her biased assessment.

For all his virtues, at his core Xia Hong is still very much a cold, heartless man.

She doesn't blame him for it, doesn't resent him for it in the least. There's no reason for her to.

Xia Lan loves her parents, but it's a very distant sort of patchwork love, vague affection, quiet gratitude tinged with regret, because it is all she is capable of offering them.

The decision to have a child might mean that the parents in question have a responsibility to take care of their child, yes, but they don't _owe_ her anything. Fortunately, Xia Lan has long since learned to be grateful for what she has and never expect too much of anyone. It only ever leads to disappointment, in the end.

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Her new name is Lilith Xia.

… Well. It's not the first one, so she easily takes it in stride with a shrug. Just another label to get used to.

Wu Yueru –now Yolanda Wu– had been very enthusiastic about looking up unique English names after deciding their move to America, and this is the result of that.

"A new name, a new beginning," her mother smiles, and some of the tension in the woman's posture finally loosens. "We'll make a better life for ourselves here."

Xia Lan glances around at the too-quiet house, the pasty walls and the scratched counter-tops, and says nothing. It's a far cry from the home she lived in for the last eight years, but it's still a good place to live, if a bit… dusty. There's nothing wrong with being a little careful with one's purse strings. She wonders how much of Xia Hong's earnings Wu Yueru spent moving here.

America is… different, but still the same as the America in her dream-memories of another lifetime. It's a rather strange, surreal feeling. Wu Yueru is proud that her daughter speaks English with barely an accent, but pins it down to the English teachers from elementary school. The woman has _no idea._

… It's probably for the best.

Back in China, Xia Lan had managed to fall into a balance of quiet coexistence with her classmates. Most of them had gone to the same preschool, and several of the girls in class lived around the neighborhood. Here, however, she quickly gains a name for herself as the weird foreign girl, and honestly, even Xia Lan herself is a little confused on the details of how that came about so rapidly. But being an adult in terms of mentality means that she isn't much bothered by juvenile attempts at teasing and taunting, which somehow only drives a deeper wedge between her and the rest of her new classmates.

Yeah, it looks like actual friends are going to have to wait until college, at this rate.

Not having very many friends means not having much reason to run around outdoors, which in turn means that Xia Lan spends a good portion of her time at home in an empty apartment. Again, it's a good thing that she's a very self-sufficient child who doesn't require much adult supervision –if any at all.

A very self-sufficient, _bored_ child. If she had a child's mischief…

"Bored? Oh, I see. Schoolwork isn't challenging enough for you, is it?" Wu Yueru smiles, but the bright expression does nothing to hide the fatigue in the single mother's slender frame. Yet another failed meeting with a potential publisher, it seems. "What about your friends, then? It'd be good for you, to go out and get some more sun."

"… They're boring, too."

The woman pauses, and levels a flat look at her daughter. Xia Lan refuses to budge. It's the _truth._

Wu Yueru tilts her head back, leaning back on her chair in a move that looks suspiciously like a quick prayer for patience. There's also a quick mutter of something along the lines of, "Why me?" Because while Xia Lan is undoubtedly a very easy child to take care of –mostly because she doesn't require much care at all, aside from the basic necessities– her distinctly un-childlike behavior is both a point of pride and a spot of worry for Wu Yueru.

But.

"If you're really against it… I won't force you to do anything," the woman sighs. "Well. If you're really that bored, then you can go and type up some of my handwritten drafts. Is that enough for you?"

It is, in a single word, _tedious._ Undoubtedly, her mother planned to use this as a tactic to make her so thoroughly sick of staying indoors that she'd take initiative herself in heading outdoors more often, but–

But it's something to do, which is all Xia Lan wanted in the first place when approaching her mother on this topic.

Wu Yueru writes a variety of short novels –but the ones that she is most passionate about are those of the _wuxia_ variety, all swordsmen and adventure and whirlwind romance. The plotlines are different, the characters unique, but it still comes across as rather formulaic to Xia Lan, which might explain her mother's minimal audience back in China. The woman is trying to push forward the _wuxia_ genre here in America in English, which…

… well. Good luck. It's not like there's not a market for it at all, but what little exists of it is almost laughably _minuscule._ There is no cultural background that makes the genre easily accepted, and sometimes things don't translate over quite well, only ending up rather awkward-sounding instead, which only exacerbates the problem.

Like she said: Good luck.

"It's not easy, I _know_ that," is what Wu Yueru confesses to her little daughter one night, when she is feeling particularly stressed, but. "But when is anything worth having ever easy?"

… Good luck.

It's sometime between the mindless _click-clack_ digital transcribing of Wu Yueru's novels and the aimless browsing of trending YouTube videos that leads Xia Lan to trying out her first MMORPG. Done purely out of boredom, out of a desperation to kill time _somehow._ Having gone through the schooling system once already –or at least, possessing the memories of having done so– means that Xia Lan puts much less stock into textbook bookwork; there's not really any point in it until high school/college in the American system, and even then, practical application and experience trumps theory. Unless one has their heart set on research, but that's a different matter altogether.

'Don't play games; you'll get distracted and your grades will drop. School is much more important, don't you agree?'

… Considering that school is a mixture of mind-numbingly dull and vaguely irritating, if only due to all the little hellions running around… no, Xia Lan does not agree.

Her first game, Sword Art Online, is one of the more popular online games; there are literally _thousands_ of tutorials and guides posted by various experienced gamers, and there is even a professional stage for it; from the looks of it, SAO appears to be a well-liked favorite in the budding field of professional eSports, what with all the promotional activities and overall furor going around the online forums.

It's… interesting.

Interesting, the hype that's been built up around this. It's fun, but Xia Lan doesn't really understand the near-fanatic way some people seem to devote themselves to the game. Then again, who is she to judge?

(Sure, the graphics are pretty. Sure, the storyline is engaging. Sure, the gameplay is well-designed. But–)

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** **[To:][orchid128]** yooo we're challenging the floor boss wanna come?

 **[orchid128]:** Sure.

SAO is set in the floating castle Aincrad. Initially, the goal of the game was to clear all 100 floors of the castle, but now the levels have increased to 150 in wake of the subsequent updates over the years. Floor bosses on previously-cleared floors can still be challenged for rare drops and bonus experience points.

It's quite common, for players to form parties to challenge these floor bosses. Difficulty scaled accordingly depending on the number of challenging players, and this time it seemed like Nyaa-Nyanko wanted to go ahead with a five-person group. Quite small, considering the maximum was 50 –although recent rumors on the forums claimed that the game developers were thinking of increasing the maximum capacity.

Not that it affects anything at the moment for Xia Lan, of course.

It doesn't take long before the girl is sent a set of coordinates indicating the area to meet up, and even less for her to make her way over.

 **[** **System Announcement** **]: [Nyaa-Nyanko] has invited [orchid128] to join the team. Accept? [Y/N].**

 **[** **System Announcement** **]: [orchid128] has accepted [Nyaa-Nyanko]'s invitation and is now a member of [Awesome Sauce].**

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** hey

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** heyyyyyy guess who finally made it here! :D

 **[ziGzaGziP]:** hello there! welcome aboard.

 **[god_of_war137]:** Welcome

 **[EMIYAisBAE]:** yooooooooo

Four players. Out of the four of them, Xia Lan is only somewhat familiar with Nyaa-Nyanko, whom she initially met in a random call for gathering a twenty-person boss challenge team and kept in touch with ever since after receiving a friend request post-boss hunt. Nyaa-Nyanko is a very exuberant type of person. Or at least, that's what Nyaa-Nyanko's online personality comes across as.

 **[orchid128]:** Hello.

It's a simple response, one that promptly receives a little heart emoticon from Nyaa-Nyanko almost immediately after Xia Lan sends it into the team's group chat window.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** so good to see you again! haven't been able to catch you the past few days. how r u?

Ah. That. She may have spent a good several days blitzing through the pile of handwritten drafts her mother left her earlier this week so she wouldn't have to split her attention between the mind-numbing work and gaming every afternoon.

 **[orchid128]:** I was a bit busy recently. It's fine now, though.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** QwQ okok remember to take care of yourself!

 **[orchid128]:** Thank you. :)

 **[god_of_war137]:** … So, not to be rude or anything, but

 **[god_of_war137]:** Are we going to challenge Bracken anytime this century?

 **[ziGzaGziP]:** ^seconded

 **[EMIYAisBAE]:** ^

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:**!

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** rude

 **[god_of_war137]:** [Sorry Not Sorry][JPG]

 **[ziGzaGziP]:** ^

 **[EMIYAisBAE]:** ^

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** RUDE

There's a small smile twitching at the corner of Xia Lan's lips as she observes the lighthearted exchange in the chat log. It's the sort of good-natured ribbing common among friends, and it makes something a tad bit wistful twinge inside of her.

… Xia Lan isn't quite a hardcore gamer just yet, but she admits there's something about playing an anonymous character online that draws her in. Because taking on such an identity in her interactions with others allows her to _relax,_ in a way that is impossible for her in real life. In the world of SAO, she isn't Lilith Xia, the weird little eight year old kid-who-isn't-really-a-kid anymore. She's orchid128, lv.37 swordsman –or swordswoman, as the case may be– and orchid128 doesn't need to restrict her vocabulary or watch her behavior or suffer her mother's concern whenever she sees her little girl cooped up at home every day.

 **[orchid128]:** I'm actually kind of in agreement with them. **[To:][Nyaa-Nyanko]** O fearless leader, when are we going boss hunting, exactly?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** ….

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** okay okay FINE we're going in rn ARE YOU GUYS HAPPY YET

 **[god_of_war137]:** Fearless Nyanko's the greatest!

 **[ziGzaGziP]:** ^

 **[orchid128]:** ^

 **[EMIYAisBAE]:** ^

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** AKSFBSVLDUGHHH.

Xia Lan laughs softly, directing her in-game avatar to follow the team's movements.

Fighting Bracken the Prison Warden, the Floor 40 Aincrad boss, is… rather difficult, but not overly so. Xia Lan might be new to games in general, but her reaction speed when concentrating is nothing to scoff at, and even if she can't reach all the keys on the keyboard so easily quite just yet, her hand speed is still a little on the fast side.

Must be from all the mindless typing she's done for her mother.

Recently, Wu Yueru is in a slightly better mood –she's found a job as an English-Chinese translator, and the knowledge that she doesn't solely depend on the money won from her court case with Xia Hong anymore successfully loosens the ever-present tension in her body. The woman still hasn't given up on her novels, and has started posting bits and pieces of her writing online; it doesn't seem like she's making any big waves, but Wu Yueru remains undaunted. Everything starts out difficult in the beginning, doesn't it? Perseverance is key.

Xia Lan's ninth birthday comes and passes with little fanfare.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** happy birthdayyyyyyyyyy [Birthday Cake][JPG]

 **[god_of_war137]:** [Birthday Cake][JPG]

Xia Lan looks at the well-wishes from her SAO friends, and wonders what it means that they are the first ones to wish her happy birthday. Wu Yueru is busy trying to meet her editor's deadlines in her room, and it's a perfectly legitimate reason, it's not like Xia Lan is particularly miffed by her mother's frazzled oversight or anything, but–

Sometimes, she can't help but wonder.

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 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** so so so have you heard have you heard?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** **[To:][orchid128]** **[To:][orchid128]** **[To:][orchid128]**

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** o w o

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** c'mon

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** i kno ur there stop hidinggg qwwq

Xia Lan looks away from the mob monsters that she's currently grinding EXP on, taking in the rapid-fire messages from her friend that pop up one after another with little pause, and sends a sparse response.

 **[orchid128]:** ?

Luckily, her friend does not seem deterred.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** it's coming

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** r u ready for it

… Oh. Oh, Xia Lan knows where this is going.

 **[orchid128]:** Is this about the latest craze on the forums again?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** GLORY IS FINALLY COMING TO NORTH AMERICA!

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** i'm

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** hELLa eXCiTeD!

GLORY.

As she's been getting into the gaming community, there are many glowing endorsements for recently-popular GLORY that she's heard, a Chinese MMORPG that seems to be the newest craze. It's not without reason; from the spoilers and teaser trailers going around online, the graphics are top-notch and the premise seems pretty interesting. Unlike SAO, however, GLORY is played from a first-person perspective – _that_ will certainly be a challenge to adjust to.

Once the game is released, of course.

Xia Lan finishes killing the last Vampire Bat attacking her character just as Nyaa-Nyanko's next message flashes in the corner of her screen.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** hey hey you're def going to be playing GLORY too, right?

Yeah. Yeah, she is.

Granted, Nyaa-Nyanko's question is not without cause. There have actually been many complaints from other gaming enthusiasts about the requirement for buying an account card and a log-in device simply for an online game that needs to be downloaded anyways, but Xia Lan has a little money saved up on the side from bits and pieces that she's earned as her mother's personal typist over the years. Honestly, she's a bit of a gaming nerd herself now, but online games are pretty fun once you get into them, and at least–

At least it's something to kill the time.

(Life is short. It's not often that she finds something she _enjoys,_ and it's a better alternative than throwing herself into petty squabbles with schoolyard children and meaningless competition over grades.)

 **[orchid128]:** Yes, I'll be trying it out as well. :) Are you going to be pre-forming a guild again? Just like GGO?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** yup yup!

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** lol u kno me so well orchid :P

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** we've got the naming stuff figured out here already! the goal is to lvl like CRAZY to make a guild first, and we're gonna be the PANTHEON and all of our chara will have greek god/goddess names it'll b GR8

Xia Lan smiles, and it's a touch exasperated. Out of their usual gaming group of seven or so people, Nyaa-Nyanko is the only one who's endlessly particular about user IDs.

 **[orchid128]:** Sounds good. Have you picked out a name already?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** hell to the YEAH

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** i'm gonna be HESTIA

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** … or hera i haven't decided. they both pretty cool.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** [Indecision][JPG][Indecision][JPG]

 **[orchid128]:** I see.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** no u don't u don't understand this is such a PAINFUL decision orz orz

 **[orchid128]:** :)

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** but enough about me what about u have u thought of anything yet?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** god of war over here wants to be ARES cuz he's a boring biscuit, emiya wants to be Poseidon, cygnus-starlight is going for apollo… and i can't rly remember but i think artemis, hermes, and dionysus r all taken, too?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** ooooooh wait wait.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** u should totally be AthEnA

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** god of war and all that jazz! ;) ;) ;)

 **[orchid128]:** … isn't that Ares?

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** NUH UH

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** Athena is war, too.

 **[Nyaa-Nyanko]:** OKAY ORCHID IS GONNA BE ATHENA OUR GROUP IS GOOD TO GO

And that is that.

Xia Lan graduates elementary school, enters middle school at eleven years old just like everyone else, and soon in the first summer of her middle school years, welcomes the NA release of GLORY just a few weeks after she turns twelve. As per Nyaa-Nyanko's request, she names her in-game avatar _Athena,_ and surprisingly enough she actually gets the ID –one would think that 'Athena' would be a very popular name among players. Although, the same would probably hold true for the other names of divinities as well…

Best of luck with your grand naming plan, Nyaa-Nyanko. Or rather, Hera.

Adjusting to a first-person perspective game when you're used to playing from a third-person perspective turns out to be a rather challenging ordeal, as excepted. But it's quite fun, and the mechanics in GLORY allows for the player to control some fairly subtle movements of their characters as well, which is quite different from Xia Lan had grown used to in the other MMORPGs she's played. There's a wide selection of classes as well, and she actually finds herself quite torn between several of them, before eventually deciding on a Priest-class Cleric; she's done a lot of close-range melee in SAO and long-range shooter types in GGO, even dabbled briefly with various magicks in ALO, and trying out a support-class sounds fun–

 **[TheREALHera]:** noooooooo don't do it don't do it DON'T, FOR THE SWEET LOVE OF GOD

 **[Ares]:** There she goes again

 **[Ares]:** [Facepalm][JPG]

 **[TheREALHera]:** shut up i hope you get killed by goblins

 **[TheREALHera]:** no rly listen up DON'T DO IT. Who's ever head of a support-class Athena? Athena is a goddess of WAR and BATTLE you need a MELEE class to match ur name I FORBID _CLERIC_

 **[Athena]:** …

 **[Ares]:** Wait. _That's_ your reason? I thought it was because you wanted a balanced party and Aphrodite81 already chose Cleric.

 **[TheREALHera]:** … DON'T MIND THE DETAILS

In the end, Xia Lan changes her class to Blade Master after reaching level 20. There would always be time to make an alternate account in the future, and wasn't the whole point of gaming with other players to enjoy it with friends?

As compared to the long, toiling days of elementary school, her middle school days seem to go by in a flash. Between running dungeons and killing bosses and learning how to make her own equipment, Xia Lan spends the majority of her days squirreled away online. It worries her mother in the beginning, when the woman finally notices, but Xia Lan reassures Wu Yueru by showing the woman her strong grades, and explaining that gaming is a way for her to relax and wind down, and increase her focus when she concentrates.

It's not a lie.

Wu Yueru nods slowly, not entirely satisfied by the explanation, but at the very least she is appeased. Although… "Do you have any interest in any sports, Lanlan? Instruments? A piano is a little expensive, but don't you think the violin is nice?"

In her past life, she'd learned to play the piano at her family's urging and kept it up all the way until college, before dropping it. There's not much she remembers aside from a few ghostly chords now, but Xia Lan knows that she has little interest in going through the same song and dance again.

"I'll think about it."

Xia Lan signs up for a math club at school and brings home extra worksheets filled with problems to solve, and this seems to make her mother happy. What the woman doesn't know is that Xia Lan only does the bare minimum as an official club member: Pick up worksheets at the beginning of the week, return them the next week, then pick up new worksheets again. It's dull and mindless, but Xia Lan puts up with it because it makes Wu Yueru happy, and she is not ungrateful for all that the woman has provided her with, for all her lacking. Xia Lan is aware that she's not exactly the easiest child to take care of, precisely _because_ she is so easy to take care of, and the girl is perfectly willing to make some concessions here and there, if it means keeping Wu Yueru happy.

It's not perfect, but it's a balance. It's a careful balance that lasts throughout her middle school years and even well into her first year of high school, from the first server all the way into Heaven's Domain. (And _boy,_ what a ruckus the Heaven's Domain update had stirred up among the players…)

This is how the balance breaks:

 **[Ares]:** Hey, Athena

 **[Ares]:** So, would you happen to be interested in playing GLORY professionally?

.

* * *

.

…

.

* * *

 **EDIT 19.01.09:** Minor misspellings corrected.

* * *

Author's Notes:

I can't believe I'm actually doing this.

… Hi all! Quan Zhi Gao Shou fanfic in the works here, hope y'all enjoyed the first chapter. (Bows, dodges tomatoes) Canon is still a ways off, patience young grasshoppers. We'll get to China eventually.

I will (probably?) be cross-posting this on AO3 as well? But stay tuned here since FFN will definitely receive earlier updates as compared to AO3. Even though no one is really in the fandom here on FFN… :v

* * *

 **QUESTION:** Anything you'd like to see in a QZGS OC-centric fanfic, folks? Speak up, speak up; still planning things and reading the original text here, will take suggestions into consideration.

* * *

Ta,

XxZuiliu


	2. 02: shallow moon-tide

Title: call the ocean waves ashore

Rating: T

Summary: Funny, the things people do in the name of Glory. [OC-centric, eSports!OC, starts pre-canon, AU]

Warnings: None.

(AN at bottom.)

.

* * *

.

 **call the ocean waves ashore**

" _02: shallow moon-tide"_

.

* * *

.

It comes as a surprise, Ares' innocuous question. Would you be interested in playing GLORY professionally, he asks.

Quite understandably, Xia Lan's initial reaction to this runs something along the lines of, _Are you kidding me?_

('Games aren't good for you. They're nothing but distractions.')

Her hand slips, and the young girl almost gets a good chunk of her HP taken out for her momentary inattention. Almost. Athena twists deftly, following the swift motion of Xia Lan's _swish-flick_ of the mouse, and the timely save is enough for her to regain a good positioning and launch her own counter against the mini-boss bearing down on her character.

"Wow, what was that just now?"

Xia Lan blithely ignores the singsong teasing of a fellow party member that comes across her headphones, instead quickening her chain of attacks, and types a quick response in the party channel.

 **[Athena]:** Sry, got distracted. S'all good.

… Actually, Xia Lan stays mildly distracted throughout the rest of the dungeon run. Not that anyone else in the party notices; Hera would certainly have a field day, if she were present… but she's not. And aside from the first few seconds of receiving such a distracting inquiry, Xia Lan does not allow it to affect her playing.

Then, upon finishing:

 **[Athena]:** I was a little busy earlier, sorry. What makes you ask that, Ares?

It's a classic non-answer. One that Ares seems to have expected, judging by his response.

 **[Ares]:** Just checking. It's not a no, then? [Thumbs Up][JPG]

Then, almost as if sensing just how unimpressed Xia Lan is with his answer:

 **[Ares]:** As you know, several of the GLORY competitions around are getting actual sponsors these days since attention seems to be growing. Bit of a far cry from the informal Twitch streams we started off with…

 **[Ares]:** Well, point is, our team has had pretty good rankings in most of the online competitions going around, so I'm thinking of seeing if our people would be willing to invest more time into this. We're pretty dedicated, but we're not like the hardcore gamers in cHAoS or anything. We can definitely do a LOT better if we take a page out of their book and take this seriously.

 **[Ares]:** What do you think? :)

Xia Lan stares at her computer screen for a long moment.

 **[Athena]:** … It's a bit of a leap to jump directly into 'professional gaming' from here, isn't it?

And isn't that the crux of the question?

She's not blind; what Ares said is true. Xia Lan is perfectly aware of how the gaming community in GLORY has been steadily growing non-stop ever since its initial release, how numbers had spiked even more when people started organizing tournaments among themselves. The increased difficulty in hunting wild bosses recently due to the high player base, as opposed to the early days… it's a good thing that the Pantheon is a rather well-organized guild with a large membership, a fact that has everything to do with it being one of the first few guilds established in the server.

No, Xia Lan is very much aware of GLORY's popularity. The informal competitions that Ares mentioned, they'd only started off as something akin to guild vs. guild events between the top players of guilds, before morphing into… whatever they currently are now. Prizes used to be a mix of rare materials and orange-grade equipment; now, there are even monetary prizes out there.

But even still, growing popularity aside, GLORY is something that she only regards as a pastime. This is a fact that's never changed for Xia Lan over the years, and in some respect this makes GLORY just the same as SAO or ALO for her. Certainly, GLORY is a permanent fixture in her life by this point, and she enjoys playing it; she's _good_ at it, but what Ares is proposing is…

Quite frankly, it's something she's never even thought about before.

Playing games for fun? No problem. But playing games in a professional capacity?

… Yeah, she might be a little out of her depth on this.

Xia Lan is halfway through typing a polite refusal in Ares' grand plan when another message flashes across her screen.

 **[Ares]:** It's actually not as much of a leap as you might think.

 **[Ares]:** Becoming a pro gamer, I mean.

 **[Ares]:** I have it on good authority that GLORY is going to be added to the MLES circuit sometime within the next two years. When it gets announced, the eSports organizations will definitely be looking to form teams for GLORY, and you can bet their first wave of recruits will be the top players in the server.

 **[Ares]:** Interested yet, Athena? :)

To be honest… no, not really.

Xia Lan plays GLORY because it's fun. That's all. She plays because it's fun, because it allows her to be _herself._ Because it provides her a chance to take a break from the tedious role of a well-mannered young girl that she plays in school and parades in front of her mother.

She's fine with acting the part of a normal, if oddly-mature child, for the sake of appeasing her mother's worries, but it doesn't mean she doesn't get frustrated with it, at times. Which is perfectly normal. Xia Lan is only human, after all.

All of her pent-up frustration, she carefully directs into gaming instead. This is the reason why Athena consistently ranks in the Top 10 of the PVP leaderboards, and why she's a terror in the Pantheon's usual lineup for Twitch-streamed competitions.

In short: Xia Lan likes the game and enjoys playing it, but it's not _passion,_ not like Hera and Ares–

And maybe it's not so surprising when she thinks of it this way, that Ares seems to be seriously considering going pro in his tentative plans. With the prospect of GLORY being added into the mainstream circuit, what devoted gamer wouldn't have dreams of reaching out for this opportunity within grasp?

MLES, the Major League Electronic Sports. It's one of the more prestigious circuits for the budding field of eSports in the country, and for GLORY to be added as one of its games would certainly be a large step forward for GLORY itself.

But… that has nothing to do with her.

Xia Lan couldn't care less about fame and prestige and sponsors. Stepping onto a formal stage, standing under the spotlight and listening to the roar of the crowd… none of that appeals to her.

She likes playing GLORY, and she's perfectly fine with quietly playing GLORY the way she currently does.

Yes, she spends practically all her time not at school and not dealing with her mother's work in-game, but that's not _passion,_ no matter what Ares might see it as. This is a complete misunderstanding. For her, GLORY is just–

A distraction. Yes, a distraction. Gaming is just an outlet for her frustrations that she's found. One that's fun, but still a distraction in the end. A hobby. Something to kill the time.

(That's the core of her reason for gaming, isn't it?)

Of course Xia Lan _likes_ the game as well as any avid GLORY fan, but her passion is empty. Her love, hollow. How can she, then, in good conscience, tell Ares –who _loves_ the game; after all this time, all these years since first meeting him in SAO, that much is blindingly clear– how can she tell him, 'Yes, I'll join you in your goal to become a pro gamer, of course I'll help you out. This is just like any other dungeon run, right?' Any… other…

… actually, hold on.

 **[Athena]:** What does your plan entail, exactly?

A small pause.

(Maybe this isn't what she thinks it is; maybe she's the one overthinking things here, making a mountain out of a molehill?)

 **[Ares]:** … We'll be more active on the competition scene, definitely. And if you're really in on this, we'll need you to help Hephaestus and 3V^N5 with the silver equipment side of things, or help take over some more of the internal guild matters.

 **[Ares]:** It's really not too different from what we're currently doing, just… on a larger scale, since our goal will be to enter any and all possible competitions to get our name out there. Afterwards, either hope that our scores are good enough to get formally scouted, or form our own team and enter when GLORY enters the mainstream circuits.

Wow, her hesitation must be obvious, if he's rushing to reassure her like this.

 **[Ares]:** I know this is probably really sudden for you, and you don't have to give me a straight answer right now. Just, consider it?

… Really, really obvious. Well. He's not exactly wrong. But isn't it only natural, to be hesitant about something like this?

Actually… come to think of it, why _is_ she so hesitant?

… Just because she doesn't love the game?

Xia Lan's fingers pause over the 'Enter' key. Her polite refusal is already all typed up and ready to go, but something stays her hand, stops her from sending it.

In this moment, she can't help but suddenly think of a ghostly non-life, _junior data analyst,_ a life of crunching numbers and running analyses and writing code day after day after day. And it was a good job, a respectable one, one that paid well and had good employee benefits and–

And when was the last time she'd actually _enjoyed_ her work? … Did she ever enjoy it in the first place?

She just… she just chose the field because she was good with numbers and because her teachers had recommended her to try it out. So she'd tried it out. And just kept. _Trying._ No one ever told her to stop, so she'd just kept going and going, quietly knocking down one milestone after another, and before she knew it, she was locked into a path that she had no choice but to keep walking. Not enough experience for anything else, no time to switch tracks for different classes, no time outside of work to try and cultivate new skills–

… Come to think of it, what does she even _want_ from this second chance at life?

Xia Lan stills completely as she comes to a sudden realization:

She hasn't… she hasn't done anything at all, has she? Just look at her. A miraculous second chance at life, and what does she do? Muddle along as a slightly atypical but overall average young girl, acquiescing to her mother's wishes, going step by step through the whole schooling system again, and… and all for what? What is she going to get out of this?

Another degree in statistics and applied math, then another desk job to slave away at until she dies? Maybe go into the hot field of computer science instead, become a software engineer tucked away in the corner of their cubicle to code away throughout the night?

What's the _point_ of it all?

…

 **[Ares]:** … Athena?

 **[Ares]:** Hello, are you still there?

 **[Ares]:** Sorry, I didn't mean to be pushy with this or anything.

 **[Ares]:** I just

 **[Ares]:** We've been through a lot together ever since the SAO servers, and I definitely trust you to have my back in this. You're reliable, and you're also one of the strongest players I know.

 **[Ares]:** So

 **[Ares]:** I

 **[Ares]:** really hope that

 **[Athena]:** Shut up I'm having an existential crisis right now.

 **[Ares]:** I was really hoping that you'd asdffdjklaf

 **[Ares]:** Wait what

 **[Ares]:** ?

 **[Ares]:** … was it something I said?

 **[Ares]:** [Confusion][JPG]

 **[Athena]:** I'm going to log off early today.

 **[Athena]:** Don't worry, I'll have an answer for you before the end of the week.

 **[Athena]:** Bye

 **[Ares]:** wAIt hOLD ON

 **[Ares]:** ATHENA

 **[Ares]:** Athena hold on a minute!

 **[SYSTEM]:** **Player [Athena] is offline. Your message has been sent, but is currently unviewed.**

 **[Ares]:** …

 **[Ares]:** SHIT

.

* * *

.

Her brief but rather enlightening exchange with Ares takes place on a Monday afternoon. Nothing particular of note occurs that evening. Wu Yueru returns home from work, ruffles her daughter's hair tiredly, then staggers into her room and collapses on the bed. Xia Lan quietly collects her mother's coat from where it's haphazardly thrown to the ground and hangs it up in the woman's closet.

"Good night, mother."

Wu Yueru makes an unintelligible sound that might be a vague sound of acknowledgement, or just a groan. Xia Lan retreats from her mother's room, footsteps silent.

The next day, the young girl wakes up at 6AM as usual, washes up and organizes her belongings, then puts together a quick lunch for her mother and for herself. A few last-minute checkups, and then the girl is out the door by 6:45 sharp. A typical day, the same as usual. Wu Yueru will wake up at 7:30 and be out the door for work by 8 o'clock; unlike Xia Lan's 20-minute walk to school, her mother's commute is a rather long one, and it takes her roughly an hour to reach her office on a typical workday.

School is… dull. But for once, Xia Lan _concentrates._ Tries immersing herself in her classes. Makes a bit of small talk with her classmates.

(Dull, dull, dull.)

She talks with her teachers. Asks what additional materials she should look at, if she's interested in exploring the subject beyond what the course entails. History, chemistry, economics. Xia Lan walks away from her classes with a full list of recommended readings.

When she returns home from school, the house is silent. Predictably so. Gym clothes from PE class are thrown into the washing machine, lunch containers are washed, and homework is finished within the hour.

Afterwards, Xia Lan turns on her computer. But instead of reaching for Athena's account card and logging into GLORY for another day of dungeon runs and PK arena challenges, Xia Lan simply opens up a web browser and starts going through her long list of recommended readings. Not all of them are easily accessible online, but several have free PDF files uploaded to various websites, and Xia Lan downloads them one by one.

Then, she starts reading.

And reading.

And reading.

… She doesn't finish. Of course she doesn't. She learns a lot more about European governments and thermodynamics than she's really interested in knowing, and somewhere halfway throughout the readings she gets distracted and starts making notes for the new silver-grade shield she'd promised Ares to make with Hephaestus last week instead of drawing supply-demand graphs.

Xia Lan pauses.

"… Shit."

She'd had an inkling about this, after her conversation with Ares, but to see it confirmed…

It's not like… it's not like so much gaming over all these years has suddenly made her _dumb_ or anything, no. That's not how it works. But if GLORY is something she likes, even if she doesn't quite hold true passion for, Xia Lan's school subjects are even worse than that, because they can't even hold her attention for long. Xia Lan ends up pulling two all-nighters later that week to finish all her teachers' readings and then some, but in the end, it's time to admit defeat.

Xia Lan is stubborn, but not to the point of denial. Not when the truth is clearly there to be seen.

She had hoped, in this brief stint, to be able to uncover some hidden interest that she'd simply never noticed, before tentatively committing herself to anything. Hence her sudden foray into unfamiliar subjects, her questions for her teachers about what kind of work their respective fields involved.

Because Xia Lan had come to a conclusion the day of her talk with Ares, and the conclusion that she came to is this:

Life is short.

Life is short, so spend it on something you _like,_ something you actually find enjoyment in and can look back on without regrets.

… Admittedly, it's a rather selfish line of thought, the kind that doesn't take into consideration future living standards and employment opportunities and what not. It's the line of thought that Xia Lan had never considered in her past life, one that she only considers now _because_ she has lived a past life, and has decided that it's a life she holds no interest in repeating.

On Saturday, she finally logs into GLORY again, and is quite literally bombarded with a veritable hoard of messages flashing up one after another across her screen.

 **[Ares]:** YOU'RE BACK FINALLY

 **[TheREALHera]:** ATHENAAAAAAAAAAAA

 **[Ares]:** WHATEVER IT WAS I SAID THAT SET YOU OFF, I'M SORRY

 **[Ares]:** PLEASE DON'T DISAPPEAR LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN

 **[Hephaestus]:** words cannot describe my hate for you rn get your ass over to the Citadel pronto we gotta get the Aegis done soon.

 **[Aphrodite81]:** yooooooooooooooooooooo

 **[Aphrodite81]:** wb! long time no see :'D we've been dying in the fights for field bosses over here HALP

 **[TheREALHera]:** omg omg omg welcome backkkkk qwwq finallyy

Xia Lan can't help but cringe a little at the sharp message from Hephaestus in particular. Getting thrown off by Ares meant that she'd completely forgotten about staying in touch with Hephaestus for Ares' shield…

 **[Athena]: [To:][Hephaestus]** Sorry! Will be over in a moment.

 **[Athena]: [To:][Ares]** Hi. I told you I'd be back, right?

Xia Lan runs her fingers over the keyboard, picking off a few monsters as she tries to settle back into her usual rhythm again before meeting up with anyone. It's only been a few days, but somehow it still feels like it's been quite a while since she'd last been in-game.

 **[Ares]:** ….

 **[Ares]:** Don't scare me like that again, please.

 **[Ares]:** Look

 **[Ares]:** It's okay if you don't

 **[Athena]:** Don't worry about it, I just needed a little extra time to think things through. I'll join you.

 **[Ares]:** want to play professionally I know not everyone does

 **[Ares]:** … UH

 **[Ares]:** wait

 **[Ares]:** Are you sure?

 **[Athena]:** Yes.

 **[Athena]:** We might as well give this a shot and see where it gets us, right? [Shrug][JPG]

 **[Athena]:** So, what competitions do you have your eye on?

 **[Athena]:** :)

 **[Ares]:** Well in that case

 **[Ares]:** It's GREAT to have you aboard! Here's what things are looking like so far…

.

* * *

.

Agreeing to Ares' plan doesn't automatically mean that Xia Lan is suddenly 100% committed to becoming a pro gamer. All it means, is that she's willing to give this a try. Who knows? Maybe she might even find herself passionate about GLORY the way Ares is one day.

The Pantheon grows more and more active online, not only in membership, but also in terms of presence. Aphrodite had recently mentioned something about forum threads discussing their team's setup, even. It always varies from time to time, though; some competitions are 5V5, others are 8V8. 7V7 seems to be the standard, though.

The Pantheon's lineup consists of a motley crew: Ares, Knight and tacitly acknowledged team leader. Athena, a Blade Master. Aphrodite81, the team Cleric. Long-range attacker, the Spitfire TheREALHera.

After that, the Pantheon's specialty lineup of _three_ Warlocks: dante, splishSPLASH, and Vespertine.

("This is the ugliest lineup of names, ever!" Hera had lamented, to absolutely no one's sympathy. Skilled players were hard to find, and so were strong characters. Who cared about the IGN?)

As the only top-ranked team with a triple-class setup, the Pantheon received no small amount of attention from avid viewers. It eventually got to the point where most of their opponents started going straight for the Warlock trio instead of the resident Cleric to mess up their tempo –or at least, prevent the Warlocks from locking down the field and stacking the deck firmly in the Pantheon's favor right from the get-go.

Still, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing.

Things were always the worst when they found themselves missing team members when it came time for a competition; several of their members were either college students or working members of society, and in the end, real life takes precedence, even when one is aiming to become a pro gramer. Thankfully, the rules were usually pretty flexible and allowed for a few last-minute switches in the roster so they could usually always find a temporary replacement from the guild, but the team battles that called for coordination always ended up being a disaster when they were facing teams around the same level as them.

Win, lose, win, lose.

Lose, lose, win.

Win, lose, win.

Xia Lan loses track of how many battles they fight.

 **[Ares]:** A lead, H cover. A81 hold.

 **[Ares]:** x3 hex on my call.

A snow-themed battleground, an icy tundra. The enemy is already within sight –Team 8fold StarZ, another highly-ranked team, one that demands her total concentration. Xia Lan follows her directives, Athena all but flying across the snow in her fleet-footed run, and the Paladin that is her target notices her arrival a split second too late.

 _Got you._

He calls for reinforcements, of course he does. The only healer on the team, of course he would be protected. Athena blocks a fellow Blade Master's sword and leaps over an Assassin's sudden strike; airborne, it's a mad scramble over the keyboard to keep careful control of Athena's movements and avoid the follow-up Sky Plunging Blade from the Blade Master.

1V3.

Xia Lan smiles. Impossible odds, but her goal is not to _win,_ only stall. And that, she can do just fine. Besides… it's not exactly a 1V3 situation here now, is it?

Almost as if on cue, Hera's Ice Bullet hits the attacking Blade Master straight on, and the freezing effect paralyzes his movements. Xia Lan uses the moment of surprise to chain a few quick combos on the Assassin, ending with a Downwind Sword Slash… that knocks the Assassin directly into their Paladin, successfully disrupting a recovery spell.

If there is one solid advantage that Xia Lan holds over the vast majority of her opponents, it's her hand speed. A fact that Ares has repeatedly lamented over many, many times. She's never tested it before, but Ares swears up and down that it must be solid pro-level, for even him to struggle at keeping up with her when she pushes her speed. Hera just snorts and tells Ares to stop boasting, he only wishes he had a high APM to be proud of.

In the end, they don't win this battle against the 8fold StarZ. Although Athena and Hera do an admirable job at stalling three out of the seven-strong team, the Battle Mage in the group of four managed to get close to Vespertine, and a Qi Master had used Cloud Grasping Fist to snatch dante and break up the team's formation; from that point onwards, it was basically game over.

But every defeat is a lesson learned, and for every failure where they fall, they become all the stronger for it when they rise to their feet again.

Xia Lan eventually learns to break her habit of picking up her hand speed whenever things start getting rough for her, because it often throws off the entire team's rhythm. She learns to observe, to predict and anticipate her opponent's attacks, and instead of making it impossible for her opponent's to avoid her assault, learns to flow around her opponent's attacks instead. The direct result of this is that Xia Lan develops extremely fine control over her character's movements –she bites the bullet and gets another monitor, and opens up an alternate GLORY account just so she can test how each and every one of Athena's movements appear in real-time from another character's perspective.

To be honest, she's so concentrated on polishing her skills that she actually ends up forgetting about Ares' mentions of professional gaming… up until the day he suddenly goes and brings it up in conversation again:

MLES announced that they would be adding GLORY to their official roster of eSports next year. All are welcomed to register. Moreover…

 **[Ares]:** We've actually

 **[TheREALHera]:** no wait lemme say it

 **[Ares]:** got an offer from an official eSports group!

 **[TheREALHera]:** …

 **[TheREALHera]:** (｀^´)

 **[Ares]:** I'm sorry

 **[Aphrodite81]:** yay? :D

 **[TheREALHera]:** we got an official offer to sign on with GhostFyre for this first season! ✧

 **[Ares]:** It's not a very big group yet, and they've only got a high-ranking competitive team running in SAO atm, but they're interested in expanding, and they've set their eye on GLORY as the next big

 **[Ares]:** We did it, guys

 **[Ares]:** This is it

 **[Ares]:** I'm actually hella excited at the moment lol

 **[Vespertine]:** :D

 **[TheREALHera]:** i'll send out the contract so you guys can take a look at it! also the MLES registration forms, since we're gonna be registering as a full team :3

 **[splishSPLASH]:** wowww i think my hands might actually be shaking a little haha

 **[dante]:** I feel you, dude

 **[Ares]:** Thanks for being on top of the paperwork, Hera

 **[TheREALHera]:** npnp~

 **[TheREALHera]:** okk just sent, check your emails, guys

 **[TheREALHera]:** not ig of course lol ;3

 **[splishSPLASH]:** lolol

Xia Lan feels… a little blindsided? She really shouldn't be, but she can't help it. It feels like only yesterday, that Ares had messaged her and asked her what she thought about professional gaming. And now, this.

The girl logs into her email from a separate web browser almost mechanically, only keeping half an eye on the in-game chat log between the group as she glosses over the contract –it's nothing fancy, honestly a little threadbare, which makes sense given the relative newness of GLORY– and then she moves on to the MLES registration form, which–

Oh.

… Oh. Actually, this might be a problem.

 **[dante]:** I can't believe this is actually happening it looks so official!

 **[TheREALHera]:** ikr ;3

 **[Athena]:** Um

 **[Vespertine]:** Anyone interested in an IRL meet-up sometime?

 **[Athena]:** Sorry, I won't be able to register, I don't meet the minimum age requirement.

For a moment, the chat group freezes after she sends her message.

Then, a veritable _explosion._

 **[splishSPLASH]:** ?

 **[TheREALHera]:** WHAT

 **[TheREALHera]:** R U FUCKING KIDDING ME

 **[Ares]:** hold on aren't you in college or something?

 **[TheREALHera]:** FUDGE I MEAN FUDGE

 **[dante]:** … the hell?

 **[Aphrodite81]:** whaaaaaaaaaaaat

 **[Vespertine]:** Plot twist omfg

… In her defense, Ares had never mentioned anything about a minimum age requirement when roping her into this competitive gaming thing. It makes sense, that there would be a minimum age rule for this sort of things; parents would raise utter hell for the professional gaming leagues if their kids ditched school and ran off to play games or something. In hindsight, it seems obvious.

Whoops.

 **[Athena]:** I'm 15. Just turned 15 last summer, actually. High school student. [Hello][JPG]

She skipped a grade somewhere along the way, and is currently the youngest second-year high school student in her class. Not that academic standing has any bearing on the situation at the moment…

Xia Lan had always been very careful about keeping her microphone off and restricting herself to conversing through text rather than verbal dialogue in the beginning when she first started gaming precisely because she didn't want any questions raised about her startlingly young age and obvious maturity unbefitting of that age. It would've raised many uncomfortable questions, unwanted attention. Afterwards, it just became habit.

… Yeah, whoops.

Didn't she mention something to Ares about her being really young, though?

 **[Athena]:** Seriously, I'm only 15. I'm pretty sure I even mentioned my age here at some point?

 **[Ares]:** yeah but

 **[Ares]:** Athena

 **[Ares]:** WE THOUGHT YOU WERE JOKING

 **[TheREALHera]:** plz tell me this isn't true and ur just messing with us qwwq

 **[TheREALHera]:** my heart can't take this qwwwq

 **[splishSPLASH]:** [Confusion][JPG]

 **[TheREALHera]:** don't do this to meeeeee

 **[TheREALHera]:** athenaaaaaaa

The news that Athena's player is only 15 years old and therefore ineligible to compete because of her _age_ comes with pretty awful timing. It's partially her fault; even though Xia Lan knew that their team was aiming to play professionally, she never went and took a look at the official rules. She'd never thought to; it honestly hadn't been an issue in any of the online competitions they'd run around competing in–

This isn't just any random competition, though.

GLORY. Officially added by the MLES. Of course there would be certain standards to uphold, ones that had previously gone unnoticed.

 **[Athena]:** … Y'know what

 **[Athena]:** I think this might be a little easier for me to explain over video chat.

 **[Athena]:** Anyone have a Skype account?

Most of the team's communications were done in-game, and it had always been enough. Aside from the occasional group emails, using the game as their main social platform had sufficed. Until now, apparently. Xia Lan was familiar with her teammates and knew them well enough even without seeing their actual appearances, and it was perfectly fine with her; Xia Lan didn't exactly pick up gaming to find pretty faces or anything now, did she? Of course not. That wasn't the point. No one else had really cared too much for it, either, as long as they showed up on time for the competitions.

There's a marked difference between seeing someone _say_ they're fifteen years old, versus actually _seeing_ it. Xia Lan might feel bad for crushing her teammates' last few shards of hope, if this wasn't something that had been hopeless to begin with. Unless anyone felt like illegally faking a birth certificate or anything…

"Oh my god," is the first thing Ares, Jared Weiss, says to her. Twenty-two years old, recent college graduate working two different part-time jobs. He's a bit on the scruffy side, all lanky limbs and baggy sweatshirts. His jaw drops upon seeing Xia Lan's image reflected upon his computer screen, and the girl tosses her captain a friendly little wave.

"Hi, Ares."

It's the first time she's actually using the microphone built into her headset. A rather strange feeling, honestly –but one she supposes that she'd better get used to. It's not as if Xia Lan has anything to hide anymore; fifteen is a much more acceptable age to be oddly mature than eight.

"Oh my _god,"_ Jared repeats numbly. Then, _"Fuck."_

"… Yeah, sorry."

It's not her fault. It's not anyone's fault, really. In the end, there's not much more that can be done; Ares tells her, rather apologetically, that they'd find someone else to take her place on the team, to absolutely no one's surprise –but surprisingly enough, he promises her that whoever takes her spot will be a temporary replacement, and she'd be welcomed back the day she turns sixteen.

"Are you sure?" Xia Lan blinks. "Of course I won't mind taking care of the guild when you guys go off to compete, but I'd probably be really out of sync with the team's rhythm by then."

"Don't worry about it," Jared smiles, and now that the shock from her age seems to have finally faded, there's something that seems like confidence finally seeping back into his frame again. "Any replacement Blade Master we find won't hold a candle to you in comparison, and there's no one else we'd rather have. C'mon, we've known each other for, what, seven years by this point? Have a little more faith in your captain, Athena."

"… Okay."

Something warm stirs in her chest. Warm, fuzzy, light. Xia Lan doesn't know quite what to make of it, and so says nothing.

"In the meantime, though, make sure you settle things with your parents, alright? Sixteen might be the minimum age, but you'd still need parental consent until you reach eighteen."

"Yeah. I know."

Of course she knows. Wu Yueru… probably wouldn't be pleased. She's fine with her daughter's gaming habits, but only on the strict condition that it doesn't interfere with her studies. Although Xia Lan is granted quite a large degree of freedom as compared to her peers, there are still some things that the woman probably wouldn't be as willing to compromise on. Professional gaming… would probably be one of those things.

Xia Lan hadn't breathed a word of Ares' plans to her mother before, precisely because she knew how the woman would react. She wonders how she should breach the topic.

The next day when Wu Yueru returns home from work in the evening, for once Xia Lan is offline and waiting. A true rarity, that. The woman looks surprised to see Xia Lan curled up with a stack of papers in the living room, but smiles and walks over.

Now, it's Xia Lan's turn to be surprised. She was fully expecting to have to accost her mother on the woman's zombie walk to her bedroom.

Wu Yueru gives her daughter a quick hug and sits down across from the girl in the other empty seat by the coffee table. "There's something I need to talk to you about, Lanlan."

… Judging by the smile on her face, the relatively lighter mood that the woman has been in recently… some sort of good news, probably? Maybe a promotion at work? A publisher's approval of her _wuxia_ novels?

Xia Lan almost feels sorry for the topic that she's planning to bring up to her mother.

(Almost.)

"What a coincidence," Xia Lan tells her. "I have something that I'd like to talk to you about afterwards, too."

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…

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Translation corner

Since I've been asked about names as of the last chapter:

Xia Lan is written 夏兰 using the characters for 'summer' (which is also a surname) and 'orchid.'

Wu Yueru is written 吴月如 using the surname Wu, and the characters 'moon' and 'as.'

Xia Hong is written 夏鸿 using 'summer' and 'great.' To be precise, 鸿 is often used in reference to 大雁 (da yan) (geese), which in turn might refer to sending letters or is often used to describe autumn scenes (geese migrating south). However, it also contains meanings of 'great,' 'large,' 'just,' and contains positive connotations.

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Author's Notes:

… I can't believe other people are actually also in the (lonely) fandom here! This is GREAT news feel free to hit me up if you ever want to talk shop for QZGS. :D Also I just read a little bit of the English translation for QZGS and askdfjhuaisva my eyes are bleeding… orz

For anyone interested in getting into the fandom and are not well-versed in Chinese: I definitely recommend watching the animation first, because even though it skips over a hEcK of a lot of details, it still beats starting off in the English translation corner. If you do read Chinese/are learning Chinese, though, feel free to dive into the original text. No, I haven't finished reading the entire thing yet…

(I get that the translators were probably trying to stay faithful to the original text, but it just comes out… really awkward… and is probably not the best introduction to this fandom imo.)

I'm not exactly sticking to all translated terms from the official English translation of QZGS. I'll probably refer to it for some, like character names and such? But not frequently.

ALSO, if it's not obvious by this chapter yet: _I'm not familiar with eSports!_ At all! … Which basically means I scrounge around online for stuff and chances are, most eSports stuff in this fic are going to be made-up and 90% fictional. Whoops. Also please DON'T TALK GAME STRATEGY TO ME or at least be nice when you do because I know NOTHING about game strategy and tactics so I don't need to hear scathing reviews of how impossible and full of loopholes everything is.

Speaking of scathing.

* * *

 **NOTE:** Okay, so I've run into this problem with my other stories before too and I've pretty much always ignored it, because what can you do about rude reviewers? My personal perspective is, 'If someone likes what you're writing, then someone else is going to hate it,' but I guess you can say I've finally hit a limit and I'm going to have a long overdue rant here… ready?

 _If you don't like this story, don't read it._

If you don't like reborn!OCs, don't read this fic. If you think the plot is overdone and boring, don't read this fic. If you think the characters are OOC and/or disgustingly OP, guess what you can do?

DON'T READ THE FIC.

Yes, it's that simple. Shocking, I know.

Venting to the author about how terrible their stories are isn't going to, y'know, suddenly 'fix' the fic or anything. This goes for any story! Contrary to popular opinion (?), fanfiction does not magically spring forth from an eldritch abyss; they're WRITTEN word for word by ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS who take time out of a very busy day when they could be doing a dozen other things to write these stories. And these writers? We have FEELINGS and are INVESTED in what we write. Disregarding that and shoving your opinion at us like it's the end-all be-all is RUDE.

TLDR: Being rude and condescending when you're enjoying someone else's hard work for FREE like you're entitled to it or something is disgusting behavior even when you're sitting behind the anonymous safety of a computer screen/mobile device, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

… I'm probably going to get flamed so much for saying this, huh.

* * *

To everyone else who's been kind and polite: I'm sorry if you had to read through everything above. Please know that I'm very thankful for and appreciative of your support, more than you realize; you have no idea how much it helps overstressed authors like me stay afloat out there.

Dunno when the next update will be… I'll try. For anyone who's curious: I'll be trying to get ~5k+ words per chapter, because I think that's a decent length to aim for.

FAQ: Is Xia Lan going to meet the China team at Nationals, or… ?

A: Or ;3

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 **QUESTION:** Who's your favorite character from QZGS and why?

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-XxZuiliu


	3. 03: quiet wind, ripple

Title: call the ocean waves ashore

Rating: T

Summary: Funny, the things people do in the name of Glory. [OC-centric, eSports!OC, starts pre-canon, AU]

Warnings: None.

(AN at bottom.)

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 **call the ocean waves ashore**

" _03: quiet wind, ripple"_

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Wu Yueru is smiling. It's not overly obvious, but it's a small, happy expression, curled right around the corner of her lips.

"I'm getting married."

 _Bright,_ Xia Lan thinks, and for a moment the girl cannot help but try to remember when she'd last seen such an expression on the woman's face –it's a futile effort, she cannot recall.

… Wait, what did her mother just say?

"His name is Vance Gundersen." There's no mistaking the rosy tint to Wu Yueru's cheeks, the way her gaze flits briefly over her daughter's shoulder in reminiscence of something _–someone–_ else. "He's… very kind."

 _Uh._

"We've known each other for… ah, nearly a full year already?" Wu Yueru giggles. Actually, honest-to-goodness _giggles._ Xia Lan is… mildly perturbed. "My, how time flies. He's the UI designer who came in to do a project for the company; that's how we first met."

… That's. That's great?

Of all news that Xia Lan had been prepared to hear from her mother, this was not one of them. Not even close.

"Congratulations…?" There's no helping the slight questioning tilt in the last upward note of her voice, and Xia Lan inwardly winces. Luckily, her mother does not seem to notice.

Then again, there are many things that Wu Yueru hasn't noticed about her daughter. Not that Xia Lan really has room to be saying anything on this; it probably says a lot about their relationship with each other, that the girl hadn't noticed anything _at all_ about the new development in her mother's marital prospects this past year. Had her mother ever even said anything on the topic? It certainly doesn't sound like something Xia Lan would absently note, then promptly forget about afterwards. But then, something of this magnitude –surely, Wu Yueru had mentioned something about it at some point? Who is this Vance Gundersen?

Xia Lan spares a brief second to wonder if this would be a terrible moment to ask if she's ever met the man before.

… There is no doubt that Wu Yueru is not the best mother, but Xia Lan isn't exactly the best daughter herself, either.

(Hasn't it always been this way?)

"Congratulations," the girl finally says again, and it's definitely more solid this time, if a bit mechanical, but… there's not really much else for her to say. Xia Lan might be caught off-guard by the sudden news of her mother remarrying, but this does not change the truth of the matter that Wu Yueru is her own person, and if this is something that will make her happy, then there's no reason for Xia Lan not to support her. Besides, even if Xia Lan really disapproved of her choice –what would be the point?

Wu Yueru does what Wu Yueru wants, regardless of what anyone else might say or think of her; the woman's single-minded determination to move to America and make a new life for herself despite her status as a young single mother and struggling author is proof enough of that.

"Thank you, dear," Wu Yueru's eyes curve, and it's such a satisfied, _happy_ expression that Xia Lan doesn't quite know what to make of it anymore.

… Well, no, that's a lie. She didn't know what to think of it in the first place.

Truthfully speaking, her impression of Wu Yueru is still stopped at the image of the over-worked, stressed young woman who could barely find the strength to spare a word for her daughter when returning home so very late in the evenings. Or rather, _was._ But… it's clear that things have changed. Changed, and it seems to be for the better.

Because now that she takes a closer look, the stress lines on her mother's face seem lighter, her skin tone is no longer such a pasty shade but something rosy and healthy instead. She's also put together nicely, a light hint of makeup dusted across her cheeks and lips–

That's good. That's great. Xia Lan is very much happy for her.

"I know you haven't had very many chances to interact with Vance before, but you still remember him, right? From that time when he was kind enough to help me pick up that extra monitor and card-machine you ordered; he's also helped us out with groceries a few times, too. Usually wears a scarf and a cardigan, remember?"

At least that answers the question of whether or not Xia Lan has met the man before. _Vance,_ her mother says, and the name rolls so easily off her lips. Vance… Gundersen, was it?

"It's April right now. We're thinking that sometime mid-June would be a good time for the ceremony." The girl nods docilely in accordance to her mother's words, absently marking down the time in her mind and making a solid note of it. Mid-June. End of the school semester, probably. "But in the meantime, I was thinking that we could organize an outing together this weekend on Saturday, just the three of us. What do you think?"

Her first reaction is to tell Wu Yueru that she's supposed to lead the upper-tier Boss Dungeon challenges on Saturdays. Stockpiling materials has become extremely important lately; with the official announcement of GLORY's addition to the MLES circuit, everyone has been trying to gain an edge for themselves. It's rather time-sensitive, if not quite _critical,_ but important all the same–

All the same, she doesn't think her mother is going to take this as an excuse.

Right now, Wu Yueru isn't so much asking her daughter if she has time this weekend as she is informing her daughter to make time this weekend for the 'outing.' She's not exactly giving her a choice, here. After so many years of living with her, Xia Lan knows the difference between Wu Yueru asking and _asking._

"… That's fine." A concession. Ares –Jared– would understand. Hephaestus, on the other hand, would be _furious._ The resident expert on silver equipment was excellent when it came to making equipment, but when it came to the actual gameplay mechanics of GLORY, the boss hunts and the PVP… well. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, right?

Xia Lan concedes to her mother's wishes, as she usually does, as she's done this entire _life_ –but this time, she knows that the concession is only made for the sake of placating her mother, before she approaches the woman with her own news, regarding GLORY.

"Excellent! We've already made lunch reservations at this rather quaint restaurant over by the shopping district." Wu Yueru smiles, clearly pleased, before standing up from her seat in clear dismissal. "I'll head over and take care of a few things before turning in for the night, then. Don't stay up too late, Lanlan."

"Alright." Xia Lan watches her mother turn away. Well, better to get things out and open in the clear, instead of letting it drag on. "By the way, I just wanted to mention this earlier: I'd like to be a professional gamer next year."

Wu Yueru trips.

(If Xia Lan hadn't been expecting her mother's sudden announcement of _marriage…_ Wu Yueru probably hadn't foreseen any prior signs of Xia Lan's little announcement, either.)

" _What?"_

… Yeah. Her mother isn't going to take this very well.

"I'd like to be a professional gamer next year," Xia Lan repeats herself, answering her mother's unasked question. No, you didn't hear wrong. This is exactly what I said the first time.

For a long, wordless moment, the two stare at each other in uncomfortable silence. Wu Yueru has always made it clear from the very beginning that she doesn't think very well of Xia Lan's gaming habits. But she allows it, in exchange for Xia Lan keeping her grades up. And in Wu Yueru's eyes, that's already more than enough, allowing Xia Lan to play around as she likes. Where other children are playing sports or learning instrument, she allows Xia Lan to play online games to her heart's content –and perhaps part of it is from guilt, from never being home for long, for being unable to provide Xia Lan the way Xia Hong used to provide for them, but it doesn't change the fact that she's been so lax with Xia Lan in this respect, in comparison to the good majority of other parents.

There had never been any problems, before. Because Xia Lan was mature and responsible and knew not to take things too far, but now–

 _Now–_

Xia Lan knows the way her mother thinks, and quickly gestures for the woman to sit down before she receives an angry outburst.

"If you would listen to me for a moment, mother, I would like to explain the situation a little bit first…"

Wu Yueru eventually takes a seat again, but this time there is no hint of a smile anywhere on her face. That's fine. This, at least, is something that Xia Lan was expecting.

So, she tells her mother about GLORY. A game that's been rapidly rising in popularity over the last few years, and has now finally entered as the newest event on the professional gaming scene. There are many opportunities in this, Xia Lan explains patiently, laying out the facts, the statistics. Many people have their eye on it. Many sponsorship opportunities. Wu Yueru is thoroughly unimpressed, utterly unmoved.

"If I had known this is what you would end up thinking, Lanlan, I would never have allowed you to start gaming in the first place," the woman's voice is sharp, and it's a bitter sound. "I'm very disappointed in you. This is what you wanted to talk to me about? I thought you'd know better."

Xia Lan nods slowly, then shows her mother the Pantheon's competition results. They're not quite top-ranked, but it's still a respectably high ranking, overall, certainly a lot better than the vast majority of middling amateur teams. Wu Yueru still doesn't seem very convinced, but at least she doesn't look like she's disappointed in Xia Lan simply because the girl is entertaining serious thoughts of going pro in gaming anymore. She has scores backing up her words, at the very least. That, and even an official offer from a professional gaming group. The latter part makes Wu Yueru visibly surprised, when Xia Lan pulls out the contract offer from GhostFyre to show her.

Progress.

But not enough.

"I'll admit, these seem like good results. But that's no reason to just drop everything for _gaming."_ Wu Yueru frowns, eyes furrowed. "I hope you realize that there are many pro gamers out there, who've literally dedicated _years_ solely to playing these… these games. Can you really guarantee that you'll be able to win against them? And if you don't win –then what will you do? What job can you possibly find, without the education to match? It's much better if you forget about gaming and set your sights on realistic things, Lanlan."

… If _that's_ the rationale Wu Yueru is using as a cover, that Xia Lan doesn't have enough _experience,_ of all things… she's been playing since she was _eight years old._ That's a solid seven years, right there, even if only four of them were actually spent on GLORY; it's only been four years since GLORY was released in North America, after all.

But Xia Lan knows that this isn't the problem that Wu Yueru really has an issue with, and so she says nothing of it. "Then, if I graduate early, will you allow me to play professionally?"

Wu Yueru blinks, clearly thrown for a loop by the abrupt shift in the conversation. "… Graduate early?"

"I'm a sophomore right now. That means I have two more years left until I graduate high school, going by the usual curriculum," Xia Lan elaborates. "If my education is your concern, then I'll just graduate early. Will you give me permission to take a sabbatical to go into professional gaming before I apply for college?"

"That's–" Wu Yueru pauses, because she's starting to see where this is headed. "That's not the _point,_ Lanlan."

"You're mainly worried that I won't be able to find a decent job if I go into gaming, right?" Xia Lan points out acutely, to which the woman nods slowly. "Then, give me two years. I'll be sixteen next year, and most people begin college around eighteen anyways. If I don't get any good results in the gaming circuit after two years, then I'll just apply for college when I'm eighteen. Same as everyone else. I won't be losing anything by this, so you have nothing to worry about."

Her mother shakes her head. "I'm not against you taking a sabbatical to try out new things, but this is just…"

 _But this is just a joke. Gaming? Can't you focus on something other than gaming? Why can't you invest yourself in something that's actually productive? Who cares about games?_

"Two years," the girl repeats herself. Because she doesn't _care_ if people think this is useless, because that's not the point of why she's doing this in the first place. Life is short. "Just two years. That's all I ask."

"… I don't want you wasting your time on something fruitless."

"But I have nothing to lose from this." She's just repeating herself at this point. Xia Lan tries a different line of thought. "Would you rather me go to college and be distracted all the time, unable to focus on my studies?"

At this, Wu Yueru makes a frustrated sound. "That's not what I mean! _What don't you understand?_ Why can't you see that there's no future in this? _What will it take for you to see that I'm just trying to do what's best for you?"_

That sounds… oddly familiar.

It takes Xia Lan a moment to place it, but the wording of this particular sentence – _I'm just trying to do what's best for you, why can't you realize that?–_ tickles something in her memory, something that sounds almost akin to–

A young woman, blaming her husband for being so callous and never returning home. A young man, disappointed that his wife would never appreciate everything he did for her.

(Xia Hong. Wu Yueru is using Xia Hong's exact wording, nearly _verbatim._ That's…)

The silence that settles between them this time is deafening, crushing. Wu Yueru seems to have realized the problem with her words after a brief pause, too, and now there is a strange, conflicted expression on her pale face.

For a long moment, neither of them say anything.

"… Alright. _Alright._ Do whatever you want, Xia Lan." There's such a _tired_ expression on Wu Yueru now, and something almost like guilt curls up in Xia Lan's chest upon seeing that reaction. It was a long shot from the start, but if at all possible, she really would've liked to avoid antagonizing her mother. The woman doesn't deserve it from her. "I won't try to control you. But promise me that if you don't get good results– no. _If you don't get first place in two years,_ then you'll give up and apply for college just like you promised me, no questions asked. Is that clear?"

(Only the first place matters; any other ranking in a competition is _nothing._ Xia Lan is familiar with this school of thought. )

"Of course, mother."

Wu Yueru's eyes narrow. "And this is _only_ on the condition that you first graduate high school next year."

The girl dips her head, "Yes."

"…" Eventually, the woman heaves a heavy sigh, and looks up at the ceiling in surrender. Across from her, Xia Lan folds her hands and waits patiently. "Okay. I'll give you permission. I suppose… I suppose I've been having it too easy these years; they say that all children need to go through a rebellious phase at some point…"

Xia Lan easily disregards the latter half of her mother's mutterings. She has Wu Yueru's permission now, however reluctant, and while it's not perfect, it's–

It's enough.

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 **[Ares]:** You won't be here this weekend?

 **[Athena]:** Yeah, I'll be gone on Saturday. Sorry.

 **[Ares]:** [Sad][JPG]

 **[Ares]:** No worries. Take a break, you deserve it.

 **[Athena]:** … I'll try to make up for it next week.

The room is dark. The house, silent. At the edge of her desk, a digital clock flashes red numbers against the shadows of a black screen: _4:41AM._

It's far from being her first time getting up in the middle of the night upon receiving notification of a new wild boss being discovered, but if there's one good thing about hunting bosses at ungodly hours, it's that there's usually much less competition for it. The relatively easier battle against Sewer King Lucas just now was a textbook example of that.

Xia Lan leans back in her chair, stretching, and reaches up to rub her eyes. If she goes to sleep now, she'll be able to squeeze in a solid hour before she has to get up for school. Considering that she's only slept for some four-odd hours so far, it would probably be for the best that she try to catch some more sleep, lest she start falling asleep in class. Again.

 **[Athena]:** I'm going to head back to sleep now, then. [See You Later][JPG]

 **[Ares]:** [Good Night][JPG]

 **[Ares]:** Night, Athena. Thanks for showing up!

 **[Ares]:** Ah, wait, just before you leave –have you discussed things with your parents yet? How did it go?

Oh. Right.

 **[Athena]:** … Things went fine.

 **[Athena]:** Earlier this evening, I convinced my mother to sign the papers for the next season.

It's a simple statement with no explanation beyond the obvious results, and Xia Lan is quite content to leave it at that. There's no need for her to bring up the deal she made with her mother, no need for her to tell Jared about the time limit of two years, the precondition of graduating early. School is easy. This is fact. There will be no issues with this.

… Granted, Xia Lan has no doubt that her mother is secretly hoping that Xia Lan won't be able to cram everything into a tight schedule and graduate high school early, if only for preventing her daughter from going into _gaming,_ of all things _…_ but that's just wishful thinking on her mother's part. The only reason why Xia Lan is still in school right now is because she isn't interested in standing out from the crowd, that's all.

But now, Xia Lan has made her choice. Decided to seriously give this professional gaming thing a go. She can't guarantee that she'd be able to get first place in only two years or anything, but two years is still better than nothing at all, and selling her situation this way is the only method she can think of that Wu Yueru would possibly accept with minimal reluctance. Besides, when she told her mother that she only wanted to give this professional gaming thing a try, to see what this field is like–

It's nothing but the honest truth, everything she'd told her.

 **[Ares]:** Whoa, you actually got your mom to agree with you?! Just like that?

 **[Ares]:** … wow

 **[Ares]:** _wow_

 **[Ares]:** man, i wish i had parents as supportive as yours. You're really lucky, y'know? :)

Indeed, Xia Lan is lucky, but… not exactly for the same reasons that Jared thinks.

(She's lucky to be _alive._ )

 **[Athena]:** I suppose.

Xia Lan glances at the time again. 4:43 AM.

 **[Athena]:** … Well, I'll be off now. You should try to get some rest soon, too. It's not healthy to stay up so late.

 **[Ares]:** [Good Night][JPG]

 **[Ares]:** yeah np just got a few more things to take care of over here, and then I'll be taking a break. Catch you later!

The computer screen goes dark, and for a moment, Xia Lan just sits idly in her chair, patiently waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of her cramped room. Stumbling and tripping over something is… not a pleasant experience. She slides Athena's account card into the drawer of her desk with practiced, habitual ease even in total darkness, then takes off her headphones and sets it down at her desk as well.

It takes her awhile to fall asleep again, after she finally makes her way into bed. The sort of light, half-cognizant doze in which you're still mildly aware of your surroundings, rather than a fitful sleep. Xia Lan wakes up a good half hour or so before 6 o'clock, and spends a few solid seconds blinking up at the ceiling, hazily wondering if she's actually awake this time, or if this some sort of strange, groggy dream again.

(It's not a dream.)

School isn't much different today, aside from asking her teachers what needs to be done in order to graduate early. Most of them are surprised –this was _not_ what they'd expected from the girl who asked them for extra class readings– and a few even try to gently discourage her. There's nothing for her to gain from skipping a year, they inform her. Xia Lan needs time to take more classes, understand more material, do well on her SAT and ACT exams, take her AP tests, and apply for college. There's no point in pushing everything into a tight schedule and trying to get everything done early.

Except there _is._

"… Professional gaming?" The _looks_ she receives from her teachers, honestly. Any other teenager might've quailed under it, maybe. Might've started doubting themselves, faltered in their choice to focus on _gaming,_ but Xia Lan barely twitches an eyelid. "Have you really considered your options carefully, Lilith? You're a bright girl. That's not exactly the sort of thing that's worth investing your time and effort in, don't you think?"

She thinks that her teachers might mean well, but it's really not their decision to make. It's not anyone's decision to make, but hers and hers alone.

Wu Yueru included.

"Your advice is appreciated," she politely thanks them, then continues to ask about the specifics of the procedure for early graduation.

Her teachers seem very resigned by the end of it all, but at least they're –mostly– cooperative. Which is fine. That's all she needs. She can take it from here.

Strangely enough, the first support she gets in this venture into professional gaming is from Vance Gundersen, her new stepfather to-be.

"Gaming? That's… certainly something you don't hear every day," is the man's initial comment on the matter, and to the side, Wu Yueru looks equal parts flustered and embarrassed. What parent would be openly proud of their child actively aspiring to be a professional gamer? "But you're still young, you have plenty of time to explore your options, don't you? It's only for two years; I'd say go for it."

"Thank you," Xia Lan responds, and quietly nibbles on her sandwich like the demure little well-mannered lady her mother wishes her to be. This lunch meeting is… not as awkward as she'd first expected it to be, which comes as a relief. Vance Gundersen is still a stranger to her, for all intents and purposes, but if this is what he's usually like in the day-to-day, then Xia Lan thinks it should be relatively simple to fall into easy coexistence with him. Much easier than the long process of figuring out how to coexist with Wu Yueru, at the very least.

The man smiles, and it's a very warm, hearty sort of expression. "Your daughter is a rather quiet one, isn't she, Yolanda?"

Wu Yueru laughs, and the light, fluttery sound, is underscored with a hint of nervousness. Clearly, she wants Vance to have a good impression of her daughter, for him to _like_ her, but… "Lilith doesn't talk very much, I'm afraid. It must be because she's with her computers all the time."

"All the time, really? That's not good." At this, Vance arches an eyebrow, and on a man of his size and stature, Xia Lan would almost say that it's a bit intimidating, if she were the type to be easily intimidated. "Are there any sports that you like to play?"

Xia Lan thinks of the way she nearly got beaned in the face by a wild basketball at school earlier this week, then carefully sets the harrowing memory aside. "No, not really. But I'm signed up for a PE class at school, and those are daily."

The man's expression clears, easily turning into something easygoing and amiable again, and he smiles at her mother. "Then that's fine, isn't it?"

Wu Yueru sighs, shaking her head. "Lilith spends too much time gaming."

"Well…"

The conversation continues along in a similar vein, Vance trying to offer some form of meagre support for Xia Lan, and Wu Yueru bemoaning her daughter's many faults. It's the most talkative lunch that Xia Lan has sat through this month.

In some respect, perhaps it's not so surprising that her mother's future husband to-be supports her interests –it's the first time they sit down for a meal together and actually get to actually familiarize themselves with each other, and this is all done with the knowledge that they're going to be living together for the foreseeable future. Of course Vance Gundersen would want Xia Lan to have a good impression of him as well, if only to make his future married life easier. Not so surprising that he would offer a bit of vocal support for her, then.

In sharp contrast, Xia Hong, on the other hand, only has two words to say on the matter:

 **[Xia Hong]:** Alright, I see.

The girl stares at the three simple words printed on the QQ chat window on her phone, full of ambiguity, then closes the app and puts her phone away.

Ever since moving to America, she hasn't had much regular contact with the man who is her father by blood, but every so often Xia Hong will send a message and ask after her wellbeing. On holidays, he never fails to send her a note, and Xia Lan will respond in kind. Even if this is only something Xia Hong does out of a desire to ease his guilt, there's a part of him that probably still _cares,_ and Xia Lan is perfectly fine with responding to his messages and keeping him somewhat updated on her life, while remaining markedly silent on this matter to her mother.

Xia Hong remarried six years ago. He has a new child, an energetic young boy who's already five years old as of early February this year.

It's a little hard for her to read too much into her father from his words alone, but… Xia Lan thinks her father is probably much happier with his new family nowadays.

 _I wish you all the best,_ she'd told him on the day she left with her mother. And, despite everything–

It's not a lie.

.

* * *

.

"That was a bald-faced _lie!_ … I hate you so much, Athena."

Current location: Jack's Village. Early evening. It's a fairly popular area, which means that the arrival of the wild boss, Evil Village Chief Jack, was witnessed by a good number of players –and even now, there are still more players coming in.

Not being eligible to compete means that Xia Lan is officially off the team's competition roster, and ever since most of her days are now spent running dungeons and being on call to hunt wild bosses rather than polishing up team coordination. As a direct result, the Pantheon has experienced a markedly increased success rate in killing and looting wild bosses, but nothing is guaranteed.

Xia Lan is not the only player of solid skill out there with a vested interest in securing more materials for her team. Chitter here, for example, is another such player.

Chitter: Battle Mage, level 60, belonging under the flag of Serendipity. "You dirty _liar!"_

"Not lying," Xia Lan says into her mic. She's still more used to typing than actually speaking, when it comes to in-game communications, but she's adjusting. It's actually quite useful at times. Even now as she speaks, her hands do not falter in the least, and it's the easiest thing in the world to chain another combo attack on Evil Jack. "I told you that we've found a wild field boss, didn't I? See the boss right here?"

"You did it on purpose, that timing! We ran into 7thHeaven on our way here! _Klesis lost his headgear!"_

Rapid footsteps, incoming. Behind her. Athena throws herself forwards without a second thought, rolling, and neatly evades Evil Jack's swipe at her while ducking, sliding, then _jumping_ and ending up right behind the boss. Chitter lets out another frustrated scream somewhere off to the side in the spot where she'd previously stood –his sneak attack on Athena ended up hitting Evil Jack instead, given the girl's timely evasion.

The rules of GLORY stated that boss drops could only be picked up by the faction that slew it, which happened to be designated as the faction that held the highest level of hate from the boss upon its death. Any other attacks done by any other faction on a boss when its hate was already firmly locked with another faction was useless… unless said faction could overtake the original level of hate and agro the boss, a task often easier said than done, particularly if a guild had already gotten a head start on boss-fighting.

Another solution to this was killing the players with the boss loot after they'd killed the boss, since there was a fairly high chance of looting drops from dead players, ranging from gold to materials to equipment–

Speaking of equipment. "Oh, Klesis' new headgear? Is that the orange-grade one with really nice stats? You guys really lost that to 7thHeaven?"

"… You're laughing at us, aren't you." It's not even a question. Xia Lan smiles, types a few quick commands in the guild party chat to direct the Pantheon's fighters to keep careful control of Evil Jack. Chitter makes a distinctly unhappy sound. "You _knew_ that we would run into 7thHeaven on our way here… hold on. Wait, no, let me guess. 7thHeaven discovered you guys killing the boss –and so you _deliberately_ gave away your location, just so other guilds would run interference for you when they ran into each other and started fighting amongst themselves."

"… Maybe?"

"You're _evil."_

"So are you," Xia Lan easily returns. "You're trying to distract me from the boss, aren't you?"

Chitter snorts, "'Course I am. Is it working?"

"Mmhm, very effective."

"… You _liar."_

Athena's Sky Plunging Blade knocks the boss upwards, instantly making it the target of the Pantheon's long-range gunners. At the same time, she _spins,_ heavy sword knocking aside Chitter's spear as she steps in, sword raised for a follow-up strike–

"Nope, you're not getting rid of me that easily!"

Dodge, twist, _jump._ Chitter looks down, ready to meet Athena's incoming blade, only to see–

 _Nothing?_

Indeed, nothing. A startled cry, and Chitter's HP begins falling. Xia Lan directs Athena with careful motions, never letting up with her sword strikes, always careful with the angles that she attacks from–

Whoops. A tad bit too slow, right over there. Chitter promptly breaks free from her entanglement, all but _launching_ himself backwards to put some distance between them, and Xia Lan makes a mental note to herself on this misstep. It's _hard,_ trying to catch the blind spot every time, but at least it's a marked improvement from that time she tripped over a _rock,_ so focused as she was on finding the blind spot.

"Did you just _blind-chain_ me? Vanishing Step?! When the hell did that get added to your repertoire?"

"Well… it's not exactly vanishing if you can see me, is it?" Still, no matter the failure of her attempted Vanishing Step, the end result is that Chitter is now a good distance away from the boss battle. Xia Lan isn't overly concerned about his guildmates; without a proper commander, it's quite difficult to make good use of numbers. Chitter might want to keep her preoccupied, so as to prevent her from directing the Pantheon, but it's much the same on her end as well.

Splitting her attention between PK-ing and directing a boss battle is a strong test of Xia Lan's concentration, but she manages, in the end. The Pantheon successfully takes down Evil Jack, if with some losses, but overall she thinks that this can be summed up as a victory. Hephaestus will be pleased–

 **[Chitter]:** [Cry][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** [Cry][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** oh, klesis says he hates u too btw

Xia Lan lets out a light huff of amusement. Chitter is one of her friends from the newer servers, the most expressive of the lot.

 **[Athena]:** Not my fault you guys took the most obvious route to get to the boss after I publically posted the coordinates

 **[Athena]:** [Smile][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** [Flips Table][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** why so savage athena

 **[Chitter]:** why

 **[Chitter]:** wHYYY

 **[Chitter]:** … also why the hell r u even here today why didn't u go with ur team over to pvp it's prelims already?

The preliminaries.

Since the GLORY Pro Circuit is officially set to begin sometime in the fall, the qualifying rounds would be taking place mid to late summer, as per the usual MLES rules. Jared and the others had been a mixture of excited and nervous for this over the past month; they would be representing a _professional_ team, this would be their first step towards gaming on a wider stage, no longer as an in-game guild started by a group of friends, but as the team GhostFyre.

Honestly, Evil Jack turned up with pretty bad timing; Xia Lan would have to watch the recording of GhostFyre's first match, Cynthia –Hera– would no doubt be _merciless_ towards her for missing the livestream of the team's first match–

 **[Chitter]:** srsly

 **[Chitter]:** y in the world are u still taking things easy here? shouldn't u b more concerned abt this than me?

 **[Athena]:** Well, y'see

 **[Chitter]:** u guys r already officially signed on with GF rite? losing ur first match 0-15 in the flipping prelims is NOT a good way to start things, u kno?

.

* * *

.

…

.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Err, yeah, Wu Yueru isn't moving back to China. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up for that at the end of the last chapter? We actually won't be getting to China quite just yet; it's definitely going to take a while, just saying. But I'm excited for that to come along too, no worries! We'll get to see canon… eventually…

Moving along in the story, now. We get to see people's RL reactions to Xia Lan's gaming. Good thing she has her teammates for emotional support, huh? ALso starting to poke more at professional eSports in this chapter; again, I know nothing about eSports, so… creative license? orz

Probably a little late to mention at this point, but there will be several OCs in this fic. Since, y'know, we're starting pre-canon in another country and all.

In terms of updates: Most likely, I will be unable to update next week, so apologies in advance for that. I'll try to see what I can do for the week afterwards, though.

Cheers,

XxZuiliu


	4. 04: as the sea clouds gather

Title: call the ocean waves ashore

Rating: T

Summary: Funny, the things people do in the name of Glory. [OC-centric, eSports!OC, starts pre-canon, AU]

Warnings: None.

(AN at bottom.)

.

* * *

.

 **call the ocean waves ashore**

" _04: as the sea clouds gather"_

.

* * *

.

 _GhostFyre v. Echo. Final Score: 0-15._

The numbers are clear and straightforward, as clinical as they are mocking in their overwhelming simplicity. _0-15._ Xia Lan frowns, and with the confusion of the disbelieving, refreshes the page. Nothing changes. _Fact,_ pure and simple, and she is finally forced to admit to herself that there is nothing about what is currently laid out before her that can be denied. These unforgiving numbers, this sort of score, it's…

She'd say it's _impossible,_ except, clearly, it's _not._

(People lie. Numbers don't.)

Xia Lan switches her gaze to her monitor where Athena is still online in the Heavenly Domain, scanning through her friend list, and perhaps it's not a surprise that none of the players from the Pantheon's competition lineup are currently online. Not now, not with defeat so fresh in everyone's minds. There's somewhat of a minor furor going on in the guild chat, even –everyone had so strongly believed in their team, had seen all the victories that the Pantheon had accrued over the months, _years,_ and to be met with such solid defeat straight off the bat in the preliminaries…

It's disappointing. Disheartening.

Xia Lan wonders if she should wait until recordings of the match are online, or if she should just contact the team directly. Would it be insensitive of her to go looking for them, so soon after their match had just ended? … Not to mention, she hadn't even watched the fight, and had no idea what could've happened to make them suffer such a solid loss straight off of the bat in the first round of preliminaries.

Wait, were they even still in the running for the tournament? This wasn't a single-round elimination match just now, was it? Xia Lan hadn't looked too closely at the official rules for preliminaries since she wouldn't be competing, and she'd had every confidence that her team would make it through the preliminary rounds.

Now, though…

Xia Lan hesitates.

What's the right thing to do, in a situation like this? She can't… she can't just _walk away_ and pretend she doesn't know anything about it. Sticking your head in the ground like an ostrich never solved anything. But…

Xia Lan slowly scrolls through her friends list. _TheREALHera, offline. Vespertine, offline. dante, offline._ It's not exactly a surprise, that everyone is collectively offline at the moment, considering the circumstances, but at the same time she can't quite bring herself to really–

 _Ares, offline._

The young girl pauses upon this realization. _Ares, offline._ Him, too? … Their team, the Pantheon –or rather, they should be called GhostFyre, now– it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that Ares is the heart of them all, the one who brought them together as a team in the first place and held them together. She can only imagine how he must be feeling right now, in wake of such a disastrous match; the _first_ match, even, and doubtlessly GhostFyre will call into question the team's skill, the captain's competency–

Ah, she's stalling again.

… Enough stalling, now.

Before she has the chance to convince herself otherwise, Xia Lan deftly plucks her phone from where it's precariously balanced on the edge of her desk, and taps open her list of contacts. _Jasper Weiss [Ares]._ She presses the call button and–

 _Click._

"Hey, Lilith." There's something that runs a little ragged in the young man's voice, and that's… that's not good. Not good at all. "I was wondering if I'd be hearing from you."

"Is everyone alright?" The words fall out of her mouth automatically, reflexively, and Xia Lan winces almost immediately afterwards. Surely, there are better words for what she wants to convey, but nothing rises to her lips. Aimlessly, Xia Lan's gaze falls on the open window of the screen she's sitting in front of as she hurriedly searches for something to say. _0-15._ No, bad topic to start off with, think of something else to comment on. "… How are you doing?"

Great going, Xia Lan.

"Still as awkward as ever, I see," Jared laughs from the other end of the line at the sheer transparency of her attempt at small pleasantries, but it's not a happy sound. He sounds _tired._ Xia Lan can feel something inside her chest twist and twinge at this realization. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine. It's a little… upsetting, but it's nothing we can't pull through."

We'll be fine, he says.

… If 0-15 is something that can be considered fine, she'd eat her _hat._

"What happened in the match?" Xia Lan asks, finally deciding to press on for details despite her reservations. "I was leading a boss hunt earlier, so I completely missed it. There aren't any recordings out yet, so I was wondering what happened for the results to be so incredibly–"

"Can't you tell by the score? We got our asses handed to us on a silver platter."

The sardonic words come out as a bitter drawl, dully mocking, and Xia Lan knows perfectly well that they aren't directed at her, not entirely. Jared's irritation, it's… _understandable,_ even if she doesn't really appreciate the tone he's using with her right now. Then again, she's probably asking for it, throwing out such a tactless question like that so soon after the disastrous match.

"Sorry," she says quietly.

"… No, I'm sorry." The uncomfortable pause that falls between them for a few nerve-wracking heartbeats after her apology is eventually broken by an explosive exhale, accompanied by Jared's own apology. "Right now, I'm extremely that we lost our very first match like this, but that's no reason for me to take it out on you. I'm sorry, Lilith. Forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive," Xia Lan responds, entirely truthful. "My choice of wording was… very poor; it was not my intention to antagonize you, so I am at fault here as well."

"Guess that makes two of us, eh?" Jared laughs again, and this time, there's a trickle of something a little more good-humored in it, even despite the defeat. "… We fucked up. We really fucked up today, Lilith."

Xia Lan waits patiently for him to continue.

"… Remember how we used to get so much grief for fielding three Warlocks in the beginning? People would keep on taking them all out before had a chance to properly set up their spells to control the field, until we finally figured out a good dynamic to get it all going." Vaguely, she hears the sound of fingers typing over a keyboard from Jared's end of the line. _Click-clack._ Is he still sitting in front of his computer? If so, why isn't he online? "It's been so long since that's happened to us that I've almost forgotten what it felt like. Feels like, I guess. Damn."

Xia Lan blinks. Yes, the unconventional setup of fielding three Warlocks on the same team was extremely difficult to balance at first. Coordination, for one –three players throwing around a similar set of skills, more often than not tripping up their own team rather than the opposition. But Daniel, James, and Matt –dante, splishSPLASH, Vespertine, respectively– were talented, dedicated players in their own right, and they managed to make it work. It hadn't been deliberately planned, but slowly, the team came together.

Three Warlocks for control. A Cleric for healing. To take care of long-range damage, a Spitfire. And for close-range melee, a Knight and Blade Master to clear the way.

"What happened?" It's a harsh question, but one that must be asked. Xia Lan doesn't understand. Yes, to anyone else, this is a severely unbalanced team that can only truly excel at long-range, but the combined strength of a Knight and Blade Master is nothing to sneeze at, particularly when backed by four supports on the field; Ares, equipped with the silver-class Aegis, is not so easy to break through, and–

"Our main emphasis has always been on team coordination, for all the team matches out there. But the official rules include 1V1 PVP matches in the competition, right? So we've been trying to get up to speed individually on that recently," Jared explains. "But Team Echo… they're not just a stray team from nowhere, Lilith. Yes, they're not officially backed by any established eSports group, but they're the _collective top players from Abyss, Illuminati, and Checkmate._ "

Familiar names, those guilds. It takes Xia Lan less than a second to recall where she's been repeatedly seeing them. "Aren't they the ones pretty much dominating the leaderboards for Top 100 in the PVP Arena?"

Xia Lan used to have a pretty respectable ranking, before dropping out when she started focusing on team competitions with Jared and the others. And afterwards, what with gathering materials and running the guild, she's admittedly a little out of touch with the PVP circle, but that doesn't mean she's _oblivious_ as to what's going on over there. Courtesy of Chitter, mostly.

"Yes, that's them," Jared mutters darkly. "And it's just our luck to run headfirst into them for our first round. Our manager is _furious."_

… Yes, she can imagine that. The entire point of scouting a team is ensuring that the group will have a strong competing team in the new circuit; Xia Lan can take a guess at what GhostFyre's management has to say about the dismal score of 0-15, and it's nothing good. Fortunately –or unfortunately, depending on the perspective– all the papers for the season have already been signed, and there's not much that GhostFyre can do to change the lineup of their competing team for GLORY this year.

"So… the 1V1 matches. We lost all five of them?" Five 1V1 individual matches, one 7V7 team match. This was the structure the MLES chose to go with, if she remembers correctly.

"Yeah."

That was not a particularly happy tone of voice there. Tacitly, Xia Lan takes the hint and decides not to pursue this line of conversation any further. "Then, what happened in the team battle?"

There is a brief moment of silence from the other end of the line. "We… we miscalculated. They didn't –they didn't do _any_ surveillance of the terrain; they just came straight for us! Shortest distance, shortest time, and they had their fucking Qi Master target _me,_ right off the bat –who the fuck even goes for a Knight at the beginning of the match, anyways?– and then their Battle Mage just charged in and blew our entire formation apart–!"

To be honest… even though she's directly hearing it from her captain, Xia Lan is not entirely sold on this. A direct frontal assault straight off the bat in an official match, against a team _known_ to be strong –it doesn't make any sense. Team battles are different from 1V1's. From the sound of things, Team Echo is a team filled with top-class PVP players, which had given them an edge over GhostFyre in the first round of 1V1 matches; fine. Xia Lan still can't quite believe that Jared and the others lost every single 1V1 match, but, _fine._ 1V1 is not their specialty; they're better than the average player, certainly, but all their efforts have been focused towards working together as a well-organized team. So, it's understandable that they're at a disadvantage against highly-ranked PVP players in GLORY. Okay. Xia Lan can accept that.

But conversely, _teamwork_ is where GhostFyre shines. It's that very teamwork which has drawn them the attention of an official eSports group in the first place and secured them a professional contract, after all. So to lose in _teamwork_ as well to a group of 1V1 PVP specialists, that's just…

… Really, really bad luck.

Xia Lan doesn't remember ever running into a mixed team lineup consisting solely of top 1V1 players from Abyss, Illuminati, and Checkmate; this means that Team Echo must be a relatively new team formed for the MLES circuit, one that definitely hasn't had as much experience as them competing in team tournaments. It's rare to see bullheaded charges like that in team matches nowadays; maybe that was what threw Jared and the others off? Having grown used to the higher level matches, where strategy is key and every move needs to be well-coordinated, maybe they'd simply been thrown off guard by Team Echo's unconventional ways?

Because as she's listening to Jared elaborate on the team's disastrous first match, it _definitely_ sounds like Team Echo is a team of powerhouses who have no concept of what working together as a single unit really means, but somehow managed to tear apart GhostFyre's formation and wear them down in short order, turning what should be a team match into a heavy-handedly enforced set of seven 1V1 matches, essentially repeating their method of victory from the earlier–

Hold on a minute.

… Perhaps… perhaps _this_ is their strategy? Matched against a team far superior to them in teamwork and coordination among its members –force them to abandon teamwork by dragging them into 1V1's? That's… much easier said than done, and no one in their right mind would ever _think_ of playing a team battle this way, not unless–

Not unless they were a team of 1V1 specialists who were fully aware of their shortcomings against a well-developed team, who just so happened to favor a balance of players unsuited to engaging in 1V1's, who happened to be weak in 1V1's but deadly together. So their only chance at victory would be to tear this team down before they could get themselves set up properly, to force them to fight on _their_ terms.

"That's…"

"Just a thought," Xia Lan shrugs after explaining her suspicions. "I don't know if this is really the case with Echo here, but… we're not exactly a no-name team anymore, and we haven't made a secret about the Pantheon's competing team being contracted by an official eSports group for the upcoming season."

"So, I shouldn't be surprised that there are people out there getting a head start on making strategies against us, because we've been competing in every possible team competition there is?" Jared groans, a static crackle on the other end of the line. "This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

"That might not necessarily be the case. I'm just bringing up a possibility here."

"Nah, it doesn't matter if that's the case for Echo or not," Jared responds firmly. "I didn't even think about this before, but you're right. Thanks for bringing this up, Lilith. We have a record out there, so it makes sense that anyone serious in aiming for victory is going to have plenty of material to study from when they prepare for a matchup against us. I don't regret it; we _needed_ the experience to grow and develop as a team, but this definitely also means we have to do something about it before another team tries to do the same thing Echo pulled here."

"Echo is a bit of a special case, though," Xia Lan reminds him. "1V1 specialists, right? We're not ranked in the top PVP leaderboards, but we're still nothing to scoff at in regular 1V1 matches against your average player; it's just bad luck that pitted us against a top leaderboard lineup for the first match. Unless there's another team out there full of top tier PVP players, it's highly unlikely that the same strategy would work twice."

"It better not work again," the young man mutters darkly. "We're definitely still going to pick up the slack on our 1V1 training."

"That would probably be for the best," Xia Lan agrees. What she said is true; Jared, Cynthia, and the others –none of them are _weak._ But there's a marked gap between them and the top PVP players, and given the emphasis on single-player matchups in the MLES circuit so far, it's a good idea to try and close up this gap as much as possible. "But teamwork is important, too, so make sure you guys don't neglect that."

"Of course not," Jared laughs. This time, the sound is definitely something much lighter, and the girl feels a tension that she hadn't even realized was coiled in her body relax with it. "Thanks for calling me, Lilith, I really appreciate it."

"No problem," she responds, a small smile beginning to curve over her lips. They may have lost the match, but they are not _defeated,_ and that's all that matters. Because gaming is supposed to be fun, right? Jared is the heart of the team, and as long as he has not fallen, Xia Lan has full confidence that everyone will be able to pull themselves together.

"We're only allowed a single loss in the preliminaries, before we actually get eliminated. This means that for all of our remaining matches, we can't afford to lose." His words are serious, but there is a fire that has been reignited in him again, burning brightly. "This might be a bad start, but we're going to _win_ this thing, Lilith. And next year, we'll get to win together, yeah?"

Xia Lan smiles.

"Yeah, we will."

.

* * *

.

 **[Chitter]:** so I hear u guys just wiped out the last team 15-0 yowch angry much?

 **[Chitter]:** [Shiver][JPG]

 **[Athena]:** :)

 **[Chitter]:** srsly whats with this pattern first u go down 0-15 then u come back 15-0 what's next an 8-7 or something is ur guys' manager really okay with this?!

 **[Athena]:** Thank you for your concern, but I believe that's none of your business. :)

 **[Chitter]:** !

 **[Chitter]:** SO COLD

 **[Chitter]:** SO CRUEL

 **[Chitter]:** [Cry][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** my heart just broke, athena. look. it's lying there on the ground in pieces.

 **[Athena]:** There there [Pat][JPG]

"Lilith! How long are you going to stay cooped up in your room?! Didn't I tell you to clear out your schedule because we're heading to the zoo today?"

Briefly, the girl closes her eyes, and mentally counts to ten. Deep breaths. Acting on impulsive irritation does no one any good; this isn't the first time that Wu Yueru has previously promised Xia Lan a day to herself, then promptly backtracked over her words. Her mother is making an effort to be involved in her life now, which should be a good thing, a positive change. Marrying Vance Gundersen has clearly been good for her, given how Wu Yueru smiles much more and has a lighter spring in her steps, and despite how she still comes home late from work, it never seems like there's an invisible weight dragging her down anymore. She's also been trying to coordinate weekly family outings, trying to bring her husband and her daughter's out with her for family recreational activities, and Xia Lan can't fault her for that, shouldn't fault her for her efforts–

" _Lilith!"_

But sometimes, the girl can't help but wonder.

(Wu Yueru wants a close-knit family that consists of a kind, understanding husband and a docile, doting daughter. Given Xia Lan's aspirations for gaming, she very clearly does not fall neatly under the 'docile' label anymore; no need to add even more unnecessary grief onto Wu Yueru's shoulders. Wu Yueru, who only ever wants what's best for her family. Wu Yueru, who just wants to be _happy,_ and how can happiness ever be wrong?)

 **[Chitter]:** so care to share anything about ur escapades in pvp lately? i've been hearing some veryyy interesting things from sololo

 **[Athena]:** Sorry, gotta run now.

 **[Chitter]:** uh

 **[Athena]:** See you around. [Bye][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** …..

 **[SYSTEM]: Player [Athena] is offline. Your message has been sent, but is currently unviewed.**

 **[Chitter]:** [Cry][JPG]

It takes less than five minutes for Xia Lan to shut down her computer and set aside her earphones, pull on a pair of socks and throw on the baggy school sweatshirt hanging in her closet above her old keyboard. Less than five minutes, but her mother is visibly displeased and impatient by the time her daughter makes it to the door, where she is standing with Vance.

In sharp contrast to Wu Yueru's ire, Vance gives her a sympathetic look. _I'm sorry for what's coming and I tried to stop it, but you can't really expect me to go against the wishes of my lovely wife and your mother, right?_

Xia Lan returns the silent message with a short nod. _Thanks for trying._

"Young lady, I'll have you know it's _rude_ to keep others waiting for you like this," Wu Yueru says, words sharp and lips turned downwards in a disapproving frown. "Vance and I might not mind, but you can't expect everyone else to stand around and waste their time waiting for you, understood?"

"Yes, mother." Xia Lan says nothing of how Wu Yueru had previously said that she could have Sunday to herself if she went clothes-shopping with her mother last week, only to promptly retract this literally right before Xia Lan went to sleep yesterday. There is no point in aggravating her mother when her ire has been incited like this. Even if she was the one who made these last-minute arrangements with an offhanded, 'A coworker offered me tickets to the zoo earlier this week and they're going to expire this week, it would be a fine shame to let them go to waste now, wouldn't it?'

Xia Lan had been half-asleep at the time her mother had announced this last night, and not entirely sure that Wu Yueru had actually been including her in that in the first place. Well. Now she knows for sure.

She gets a commiserating pat from her stepfather on their way to the car, for what it's worth.

"So, how's school going for you, Lilith?" Credit where it's due; Vance is a genuinely cheerful, easygoing person, and it's easy to see how his presence always manages to lighten up Wu Yueru's mood. How he manages to lighten up the mood of any room he's standing in with his jovial attitude. "Anything interesting happen in class lately?"

"Not really. My studies have been progressing well." That's an understatement. Ever since her declaration to graduate early, Xia Lan has been nothing if not meticulous in finishing her studies and taking her tests and putting everything in order –and while her teachers have always been under the impression that Xia Lan is a bright girl, they hadn't believed that she'd be able to pull off graduating two years early. Not until Xia Lan throws her full effort behind finishing her studies as soon as possible, and there is a truly marked difference in her performance that has them giving her funny looks like they can't believe it's actually her completing this work, but it _is._

Recently, they've been trying to convince her to apply to college early or find herself a research program; maybe even an internship, if she's interested?

But Xia Lan knows what she'll be doing, once she graduates. It is for this very reason that she has been quietly rebuffing parent-teacher meetings as much as possible, and dragging Vance to stand in as her parent when such meetings are unavoidable. Thankfully, the man doesn't seem to mind, and legally she _does_ count as being under his custody, so it's all good.

"Very concise," Vance chuckles. "So, are there any _boys_ I need to beat off with a stick, then?"

"I'd save that stick for at least five years later down the road," Xia Lan responds, voice as dry as the desert sand, and her stepfather laughs. To the side, Wu Yueru just shakes her head, though there is a wry little smile of her own that surfaces over her lips. All jokes aside, she is pleased with the girl's response; in the past, Wu Yueru has made it very clear that she didn't want her daughter dating until she was at least in college, preferably after she graduated and found herself a steady job. Dating will distract a person from their studies, or so Wu Yueru had claimed.

Xia Lan hadn't really been listening. There was literally no possibility of her dating any of her fellow schoolchildren in the first place, so there hadn't really been any point in listening, anyways. She rather doubts that she'd form a romantic relationship with anyone, period, but she would save that can of worms for another time.

"Ha! Knew you had a sense of humor somewhere in there," Vance snorts. "Have you been to the zoo before?"

Once, yes. But that had been when she still lived in China, during a rare time when Wu Yueru and Xia Hong hadn't been arguing with each other, and decided to go on a small family outing much like this one –two parents, bringing their little girl to the local zoo.

"I don't really remember," Xia Lan doesn't quite lie –she _doesn't_ remember very many details of that family trip so many years ago, so it's not actually a lie– and there's nothing more for her to say on the subject. "What's it like?"

"Wow, you haven't been to the zoo before? Well, lemme tell you, there's…"

The outing goes well. Xia Lan acts appropriately surprised when seeing exotic creatures, and properly intrigued when zookeepers go in to feed the animals. Vance is quite familiar with the zoo himself, and acts as a mini-tour guide, and Wu Yueru drifts by his side, every bit the charming lady, and the happy couple turn many heads on the streets that day. A perfect little family.

When they finally return home, Xia Lan is so exhausted and drained from the day's activities that she doesn't even bother logging onto Athena's account for a few last rounds of PVP before she goes to sleep. The day isn't altogether unsatisfying, and it does have its highlights, but nonetheless she still wishes that her mother would give a little more warning in advance before springing things on her like this. It would be very much appreciated.

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* * *

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GLORY.

The words leap across the scene, accompanied by the familiar sound of blades crossing, sliding and interlocking. Bold colors, blazing brightly.

 _Victory._

Xia Lan lets out a sharp exhale, leaning back in her seat. This match was… much more difficult than expected. She's been spending more time in the PVP arena, ever since Echo's successful example of the advantages in having considerable 1V1 experience, and even though she's unable to compete –well, there's nothing wrong with preparing for the next season a little early, is there? Even though she's a good hand at PVE and multi-player battles, thanks to her earlier stint in the team and the numerous boss hunts she's led, it's been awhile since she took PVP seriously, and that's a major oversight that she needs to rectify. And so, she's been working on it.

Climbing the ranks again has been slow going, since she's splitting her time between the guild and her personal PVP training, and in the beginning she kept having twitchy habits of getting distracted because of all the full-out, messy brawls she's been in (read: wild boss hunts), but she's been improving. Getting better at reading her opponent, and predicting their movements.

This particular opponent, though…

Cloudburst: Qi Master, level 60. He was… not _hard_ to read, per se, but the way he chained his movements, smooth and efficient and in a way that kept forcing her to adjust Athena's attacks, it was decidedly difficult to land a solid hit on him. And he was _sneaky;_ some openings weren't actually openings at all, and Xia Lan has been getter at reading feints and making her own feints, but if it hadn't been for her faster speed in chaining her attacks to eventually overwhelm him in the end, she definitely would've lost.

… Well, this would be why she needs more practice. More experience. She needs to improve, to be _better,_ if she wants to be able to help her team next year. Jasper and Cynthia got one of their friends to stand in as a replacement Blade Master, and he's skilled, he works well enough with the team, but James and Matt had both privately confided in her that he had a tendency to get a little overenthusiastic and fall out of the team's rhythm, or push too fast a beat for them to properly match up to.

She's seen the recordings. It's… it's true. But he's been improving; the entire team has been improving, and Xia Lan is very much happy for them, even as she pushes herself harder and harder, because she refuses to be a liability for her team. If she's going into professional gaming, she's not going into it half-assed.

Hence, PVP practice.

 **[SYSTEM]: Player [Cloudburst] has sent you a friend request. Accept? [Y/N]**

Xia Lan reaches up, stretching out her arms and her upper back, before settling down into a more comfortable position in her seat and picking up her mouse again.

 **[SYSTEM]: Friend request accepted! Player [Cloudburst] is now your friend.**

He's good. Really good. Definitely a heck of a lot better than most of the players she's been practicing on lately, though that might be because she hasn't moved back into the top tier rankings quite just yet. Still, this is the toughest fight she's had in a long time, and Xia Lan can respect that.

 **[Cloudburst]:** Hello

 **[Athena]:** Hi

 **[Athena]:** You're really skilled! Thank you for the match.

Always good to be polite, right? At least, that's what Cynthia says.

 **[Cloudburst]:** Ah, thanks.

 **[Cloudburst]:** I was just about to say the same, actually. You have very nice precision, and that APM is nothing to scoff at.

Xia Lan blinks, surprised, fingers stilling over the keyboard. Cloudburst was able to deduce that after a single match with her? Well, the APM part is a little obvious, but no one aside from her teammates have ever commented on her precision controls in-game.

 **[Athena]:** Thank you.

 **[Cloudburst]:** You're welcome. May I ask how long you've been playing?

… Huh. She's never really thought about it all that much, but she first started gaming when she was eight, so… seven years, approximately? Although, GLORY only came out in recent years. Strangely enough, this is the first time that this has actually came up for her in casual in-game conversation, discounting her teammates.

 **[Athena]:** I started playing when GLORY was first released, so… three years, give or take.

 **[Cloudburst]:** Very impressive.

Well, it's not like she's the only one. Most of the Heavenly Domain players all started on the first server in the initial release, and–

 **[Cloudburst]:** Have you ever thought about going pro? You're definitely skilled enough for it.

Xia Lan tilts her head. She's not narcissistic enough to think that everyone playing GLORY knows her name, but Jared and the others have been doing pretty well in GhostFyre recently, and they're starting to make a name for themselves in the MLES circuit. And prior to the official debut as GhostFyre, Athena had been a regular member of the Pantheon's team in online competitions; most of the older GLORY players all know of her relation, to some degree. By default, Athena has been receiving a bit of a popularity boost in-game, as well.

Cloudburst's skill definitely doesn't strike her as that of an amateur, and from his question, he isn't altogether unfamiliar with the professional gaming scene, either? … She's a little confused.

 **[Athena]:** I'm already joining up with a team next year.

 **[Athena]:** This… this isn't a recruitment pitch, is it? If that's the case, I must respectfully decline.

The response from the other end is nearly immediate.

 **[Cloudburst]:** No, no, sorry, that's not what I meant.

 **[Cloudburst]:** [Laugh][JPG]

 **[Cloudburst]:** It's great that you're aiming to play professionally! Always good to see new talent.

Okay, now she's even more confused. The GLORY circuit literally only started _this year._

 **[Athena]:** ?

 **[Athena]:** … Are you a pro gamer?

It's the only feasible explanation she can think of, and Cloudburst is _definitely_ skilled enough for it, but even then, it doesn't entirely make sense–

 **[Cloudburst]:** Nah, I'm retired. [Smile][JPG]

 **[Cloudburst]:** Played in China's league for the last three years, but I'm a little too old to keep up with all you younglings. Well, that doesn't mean I can't still dabble around for fun.

 **[Cloudburst]:** So, how about another round?

.

* * *

.

…

.

* * *

 **EDIT 19.01.09:** Minor grammar edits.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Ch 4 up. Apologies for the delay; RL has been pretty busy over here recently. It'll probably be awhile before we can get back to weekly updates.

On a brighter note, _ocean waves_ now has fanart! Thank you to **followtheherd** for a lovely depiction of Xia Lan/Athena. :) I've reblogged it on my Tumblr page, and the link is also up on my profile, if anyone is interested.

In this chapter: A long conversation with Ares following the unraveling of the disastrous 0-15 scoring, some happy family moments, and we get a glimpse of the first canon character! Anyone know who I'm referring to? ;3

… Granted, it's only the canon character's game avatar popping up at the end here, and this is the canon character with the least amount of screen time, period…

Note: _and all the lovely angels sing_ has also been updated! Again. (I actually slipped into second person while writing this chapter for _ocean waves_ after _angels sing_ so many times it's not even funny. Let me know if there are still any second person tidbits wandering around in the text and I'll fix it, yeah?)

No idea when the next update will be. Hopefully sometime within the next few weeks? By early November at least, hopefully, but I've got exams coming up soon. #goals

Ta,

XxZuiliu


	5. 05: to brace against the swelling tide

Title: call the ocean waves ashore

Rating: T

Summary: Funny, the things people do in the name of Glory. [OC-centric, eSports!OC, starts pre-canon, AU]

Warnings: None.

(AN at bottom.)

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* * *

.

 **call the ocean waves ashore**

" _05: to brace against the swelling tide"_

.

* * *

.

"For heavens' sake, Lilith, how long are you going to stay glued to your computer screen?!"

Ever since Xia Lan had somehow managed to wrangle her mother's reluctant agreement with regards to her plans of taking a shot at professional gaming, the girl can't help but notice how the woman has become markedly more sensitive to the amount of time she spends on her computer. Wu Yueru never used to care much for her daughter's habits, perfectly content to leave the girl to her own devices while she went about her own goals, so long as the girl kept her grades high… but that is no longer the case. Hadn't been, for quite some time. Not since…

…

On one hand, Xia Lan supposes that it's a good thing that Wu Yueru is much more invested in her daughter's life these days. Xia Lan still remembers all too well the distant days of empty rooms and tomb-like silences in too-large rooms back in China, still remembers the way Wu Yueru doesn't so much as spare a single glance for her daughter after returning home from work after moving to another country. It… it's not like she ever _needed_ the attention in the first place; Xia Lan knows how to cook and clean and get groceries and do the housework, and that's what she's always done, but–

But on the other hand, she would very much appreciate it if her mother would allow her to focus properly on her goals instead of 'running interference' at every possible opportunity.

… Then again, most people don't approve of _gaming_ as something worth pursuing in any real seriousness, so it's not like the girl doesn't understand where her mother is coming from. Not that it helps things any.

" _Lilith!"_

Xia Lan shoots off a quick, hurried farewell to Cloudburst, just as Wu Yueru slams open the door to her room. She's been down in the Arena with Cloudburst pretty much as often as she can recently –she'd been able to win their first match together what seems like ages ago by relying on her hand speed, but Cloudburst is _good,_ and Xia Lan walks away from every match with him feeling like she's learned a little more. It's lucky that Cloudburst takes her enthusiasm for PK challenges in good humor, and seems perfectly willing to give some pointers here and there. Xia Lan reciprocates by offering rare materials, some of which Cloudburst accepts, others reject –and it's an amiable enough relationship that they've built up, these days.

 **[Cloudburst]:** No problem. See you later!

There is a heavy _thud_ from the sound of door striking the wall, and her mother strides through the doorway with a scowl, arms crossed.

From the looks of it, 'later' is probably going to be… much, much later.

Xia Lan takes off her headset and places it on her desk, turning to face her mother.

"Why are you still sitting here? Didn't I tell you to do the dishes before holing yourself upstairs?" Wu Yueru is very clearly angry, upset, but–

"I already did. They're drying on the dish rack." Xia Lan blinks, confused. Her mother's righteous anger doesn't strike her as false, but the reasoning throws her for a loop. Not washing the dishes, of all things? … She's been taking care of pretty much all the household chores ever since they moved here and her mother started consistently working late into the night. No one else was going to take care of the housework, certainly, and it's not like Xia Lan minded it very much in the first place. Taking care of a child as a single parent couldn't be easy, so doing her best to ease Wu Yueru's burdens was the least she could do.

And now, this.

"'Drying on the dish rack,' you say? … Come here."

Xia Lan slides down from her chair and onto her feet, silently following her fuming mother out of her room. It's lucky that she just finished another round in the Arena with Cloudburst and is currently in a safe zone… She really doesn't think her mother would've appreciated it if she took a few seconds to take Athena to a safe zone before heading out with her.

"Look." Clipped, short. Wu Yueru stops at the entryway to the kitchen, and roughly gestures towards the sink. The sink which is decidedly _not_ empty, which… doesn't really make any sense? "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Xia Lan frowns, because she most certainly washed the lunch dishes before heading upstairs, so what she's seeing right now doesn't make any sense, and it's–

It's not the lunch dishes?

"These aren't the dishes from lunch."

Wu Yueru's anger falters for a moment, but does not dissipate. "… They're still unwashed dishes sitting in the sink. It's been sitting there for the past hour, Lilith."

Her last hour had been spent in the Arena with Cloudburst.

"I was unaware," she says simply. "The lunch dishes I've already washed earlier; they're still on the drying rack over there. These weren't here while I was doing the dishes… maybe Vance had a snack before he left just now? I apologize if this has irritated you, mother. Would it help if I washed these right now before heading upstairs again?"

There's no point in getting upset. Her mother hadn't known, and Xia Lan is well aware that the woman has been having some trouble with her editors at work lately. There's no need for her to add to her mother's stress. And in a vague corner of her mind, Xia Lan quietly acknowledges to herself that part of her mother's recent added stress might very well be a direct result from hearing her daughter's declaration to go into _gaming,_ however temporarily. While the girl does not _mean_ to antagonize her harried mother–

A second chance at life. Xia Lan would very much like to at least _try_ pursuing something she enjoys, instead of focusing purely on what is "practical," and she rather wistfully wishes that Wu Yueru would at least try seeing things from her point of view sometime. Doesn't the woman's passion for _wuxia_ fall in somewhere along the same lines?

Wu Yueru sighs, tipping her head back and pinching the bridge of her nose. "… Yes, it would help if you washed the dishes again. Thank you, Lanlan."

It's not quite an apology for losing her temper, but Xia Lan knows it's the closest thing she'll get from her mother.

Twist, turn on water faucet. Soap suds. Xia Lan is acutely aware of the way her mother is watching her wash the dishes, and wonders how long it will take before Wu Yueru finally decides to say something to her.

"How's school?"

… This sounds like a very familiar question, and a very familiar line of conversation. "It's alright."

Wu Yueru purses her lips. "Just 'alright?' You… haven't been having any troubles in class or anything, lately?"

The way the woman is saying almost makes it seem as if she's _hoping_ for her daughter to be struggling. Which probably isn't the case, and Xia Lan would be much better off giving her mother the benefit of the doubt, when it comes to something like this.

"No."

The girl sets aside a dish on the drying rack and reaches for the glass instead, discretely picking up her speed on performing household chores.

"It's… you don't need to feel like you have to _prove_ anything to me, Lanlan." Wu Yueru shakes her head, oblivious to her child's minute movements. "I know there's a lot packed into the last two years of the high school curriculum; if you're struggling with anything, that's perfectly normal, and there's no shame in taking a step back, alright? I know you said you want to go for gaming, but school is _important;_ I'd much rather you calm down and take things slowly so you'll do well in your studies than rush through everything just so you can go out to play games–"

"That's not the case, mother." Xia Lan interrupts, shaking her head. "I'm performing very well in all of my classes, and everything is on track. My teachers have estimated another two more months before I'm ready to graduate."

Silence fills the kitchen. There is nothing but the sound of running water, and Xia Lan quietly sets aside the last dish onto the rack.

"… _Why?"_

Xia Lan blinks. "'Why' what, mother?"

The woman looks at her with a distressed, mournful expression that is part confusion, part incomprehension, but more _disappointment_ than anything else, and it makes something bitter rise in the back of the girl's throat. "You're a clever girl, Lanlan. Why… why in the _world_ are you doing something like this? If only you could apply your drive to something useful, imagine the accomplishments you'd make!"

"I… I appreciate that you're trying to point out what's best for me, mother," Xia Lan says politely. "But I've already made up my mind, and I'd really like to try and give this a go. I know that you've made it clear you don't approve of this, but it really is something I enjoy, and I would like to at least _try._ What's the harm in that?"

"'Harm?' … Lanlan, just look at you! Not even out of high school, and you're doing nothing but gaming all day! It's not healthy for you –not for your body, or your mind!" Wu Yueru wrings her hands, the volume of her voice rising with each word. Clearly, this has been building up for quite some time. "I'm not against you playing games as a pastime or to wind down from schoolwork, but you shouldn't make it your _life._ You know better, Lanlan."

"Yes, I do," she freely acknowledges her mother's point. But– "Computer programming, bio-engineering, data analytics… these are things that would be _useful,_ right? But they're not exactly things that I enjoy, so I'd at least like to try seeing what professional gaming is like before I–"

"You've never even _tried,_ Lanlan!"

 _Actually, I have._ Xia Lan bites back the words just before they thoughtlessly roll off the tip of her tongue. Instead, what comes out is, "I thought you already agreed that I'd have two years to focus on gaming before turning to other pursuits, if I graduated early?"

"That was before–" This time, Wu Yueru is the one who cuts off her own words by herself. Xia Lan can guess what the woman was about to say. _That was before I realized that you were actually going to succeed in doing this._ "… How can you be truly serious about this? You're still so young; how can you know if _gaming_ is what you want to do with your life?"

"I don't," Xia Lan admits candidly. "But how will I know for certain that it's _not_ what I want if I don't at least give it a try?"

" _Lilith!"_

"Mother." It's almost laughable, in the end. Xia Lan had held her fair share of reservations against dipping her toes in _gaming_ as a future profession, back when Ares had first approached her on the subject, but her mother's constant questioning and undermining of her efforts has now created an almost defensive reaction to stubbornly dig in her heels and stand her ground on the matter.

"… I'm done with the dishes. I will be up in my room, if you need me for anything." Xia Lan ducks her head, "Please excuse me."

"I'm trying to _help_ you, Lilith!" Wu Yueru calls after her, and it's clear as day that the woman's words edged with frustration, but…

…

Thanks for trying, mother.

(I'm sorry for being selfish. I'm sorry.)

.

* * *

.

Xia Lan doesn't talk to her teammates about the conversation-arguments that come up between her and her mother, conversations that occur with increasing frequency as the date of her early graduation draws ever closer. For one, it's not like there's anything they can do about it –most of them have their hands full with their own family issues already– and secondly… it wouldn't do to distract them with her personal problems. There was a competition to focus on, after all.

Vance had smartly stayed out of this whole mess in the beginning by taking a largely neutral stance on it all, but with her mother's growing distress now that the 'professional gaming gig' draws closer and closer as _reality,_ rather than a careless flight of fancy… suffice to say, Vance is still very much firmly on his wife's side, when the cards are town. There was never any question about it. Thank goodness most of the paperwork has already been completed.

It's not like Xia Lan doesn't understand where her parents are coming from. They're only concerned for her and want the best for their young girl. Their _clever_ young girl, who's proven herself perfectly capable of finishing the last two years of high school just like that, which clearly must mean that she is able to accomplish greater things, if only she'd turn away her attentions from trivial gaming in favor of buckling down and _applying_ herself to practical matters–

Maybe it was a mistake to try and approach this from the perspective of squeezing out two extra gap years, to explore professional gaming. Not that there's a chance for a do-over or anything, at this point…

Xia Lan shakes her head.

 **[TheREALHera]:** we won we won we wonnnnn

 **[TheREALHera]:** [Cheers][JPG]

 **[TheREALHera]:** great job today everyone! (* ω)

 **[Ares]:** Yes, what she said. Good game, everyone. :)

 **[dante]:** Excellent work, all. **[To:][Vespertine]** Nice save with the Magic Mirror during the team match!

It's… nice, scrolling through the team's group chat. A small smile surfaces briefly over the girl's face as she catches up on the conversation, the chat log continuing to scroll up as new messages roll in. It's not quite enough to chase away the dark cloud that is her mother's staunch disapproval of Xia Lan's decision to venture into gaming, but it… helps.

 **[Vespertine]:** Thank you. It was a good match.

 **[TheREALHera]:** (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

Right, the match earlier this afternoon had been a good one. A clear-cut victory. Although the opposing team had fought well, GhostFyre still prevailed in the end, despite a shaky moment in the middle when their opponents had broken through the continuous lockdown of their three Warlocks. Thankfully, Vespertine had managed to make a good recovery with a well-timed Magic Mirror to cover for splishSPLASH's lapse in their formation. Of the three Warlocks on the team, Vespertine was the one with the best situational awareness, dante had the best synchronicity during team matches, and splishSPLASH the quickest reaction time. This wasn't the first time an opponent had tried breaking the Warlocks' teamwork by deliberately baiting splishSPLASH into falling out of step with his teammates, which was all well and good as a sound tactic when it actually _worked;_ there were also several cases where doing so backfired quite spectacularly on the opponents in question.

In short: Getting tripped up and thoroughly bogged down by a Warlock's spells is a nasty, headache-inducing experience. To quote Chitter's words after a round with Vespertine, "10/10 would not recommend."

… At any rate, she should probably still bring up this issue with splishSPLASH later. Or have Jared do it, seeing as he's the captain and all. For all she knows, they might already be well aware of the problem and working on it already, but it probably wouldn't hurt to drop in a word and double check with them, just in case.

But for now…

 **[Athena]:** Congrats! You guys were great out there today. :)

… For now, it's fine to just celebrate. The team had been working hard as of late, and they deserved to enjoy their victory. At first Xia Lan had been worried, in the immediate days following their crushing defeat from Echo, even despite her conversation with Jared, but clearly her worries have proven to be needless. Something to be glad for, really. With the preliminaries drawing to a close, it would be good for the team to head into the later stages of the tournament on a high note.

 **[TheREALHera]:** thx!

 **[TheREALHera]:** 33

 **[Ares]:** Thanks, Athena.

 **[nemesis384]:** Yeah, what they said.

Xia Lan blinks. Of all members on the team, nemesis384 is the one that she's least familiar with –apparently, Ares had even gone out and recruited him from another guild– and it's not very surprising, considering the whole reason behind nemesis384's inclusion into GhostFyre in the first place was to fill in as a replacement Blade Master for Athena. Which had made their interactions with each other more than a little awkward at times, particularly so in the beginning. In the end, nemesis384 never really warmed up to her, unlike the other members of the team, which was… understandable.

To be fair, Xia Lan probably wouldn't be particularly pleased with being a "replacement," either, and she could only wonder how Jared had gotten him to agree to sign on for the season.

 **[nemesis384]:** **[To:][All]** Wanna head across the street and grab some food later tonight?

 **[splishSPLASH]:** down

 **[dante]:** same dude

 **[nemesis384]:** Wellll, except for Athena I guess lol.

… _What?_

Xia Lan frowns, but before she can follow up with anything on that particular comment, a new message pops up onto the chat screen.

 **[nemesis384]:** But I'm sure Cynthia can eat your share, right? :) **[To:][TheREALHera]** foooood

The words are innocent, innocuous. A friendly jab. Nothing more, nothing less.

Except Xia Lan hadn't _known_ that she was supposed to be comfortable with nemesis384's teasing like this. Were they supposed to be at the stage where good-natured ribbing was the norm? … But it never _seemed_ like he had a great impression of her, and Xia Lan's utter lack of effective conversational skills probably didn't help things in that area, either.

Um.

… Social skills, goddamnit. This was the exact reason why she'd curled up in a quiet cubicle for data analytics in her past life.

 **[TheREALHera]:** omg I hate you so much

 **[TheREALHera]:** my diet qwwq

 **[nemesis384]:** [Smoke][JPG]

 **[Aphrodite81]:** sounds like a plan to me. is everyone down for 6pm? we can meet up in the lobby or something.

 **[Ares]:** Sounds great, everyone!

Xia Lan watches the conversation derail from there, dinner plans and training schedules filling up the chat log one message at a time, and… and there's not much she can chime in with, really. They're all conversations about the team's activities, but while Xia Lan is certainly part of the team, it's in this sudden moment of startling clarity that she realizes that she's also really _not._ Because there's a certain camaraderie built through actually _being_ together and working with each other in the real world that's markedly different from interacting with a persona from behind a computer screen, and Xia Lan is…

Xia Lan is still part of the team. She's been with them for _years._ But somehow, for a single moment as she watches the conversation move on without her, it still feels so much like being left behind.

Which is stupid and senseless because she _knows,_ knows perfectly well that it's not the case, that she's just picking at straws and being petty and… and… and she really needs to go and pull herself together, because what is even there for her to be upset over, really?

She's going to graduate early. She's going to join her friends in GhostFyre. She's going to give this gaming thing a go, and see where it leads her.

There's nothing to be upset over.

Xia Lan roughly slides on her earphones and begins organizing another guild run on one of the larger dungeons in-game. Rare materials aren't going to magically multiply themselves, after all. Another day of farming it is. Wonderful.

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* * *

.

 **[Cloudburst]:** So, uh

 **[Cloudburst]:** I don't mean to pry, but you seem to be a little distracted today?

The girl sighs, a short exhale of air escaping her lips, and clicks her tongue when the Qi Master comes at her from a tricky angle. She deftly evades it with a _swish-swish-flick_ of her mouse, but gets caught by an uppercut instead as she turns. Sloppy. She should've moved more cleanly.

 **[Cloudburst]:** Is there something wrong?

 **[Athena]:** … That obvious, am I?

The screen grays out, swords sliding against each other and locking in a monochrome world. _Lose._ Xia Lan isn't so much upset at losing to Cloudburst as she is frustrated with herself. She's off her game today and she _knows_ it, and the fact that it's because of something so _stupid_ only adds salt to the wound. So what if she feels like she's being left out by her teammates, especially after that conversation yesterday? They're literally living together in the accommodations provided by GhostFyre as per their contracts, so of _course_ they'd grow closer and bond with each other. Perfectly reasonable, perfectly natural. Not to mention, they're still in the middle of _competing,_ of course they have other things to be focusing on.

So it's downright _stupid_ for her to be upset over something meaningless and minor like that. Intellectually, Xia Lan can see that she's just being difficult and unreasonable in overreacting like this… emotionally, however, it's hard to keep that irrational, pointless jealousy at bay, now that she's aware of it.

… Maybe it'll go away if she ignores it hard enough. It'll probably fade soon on its own, anyways. She can't afford to be off her game for long –her team still needs her to take care of the guild for them.

(Speaking of which, Xia Lan still needs to remember to pick more sub-leaders. This whole leading a guild business really isn't a job meant for a single person to chew on.)

 **[Cloudburst]:** You okay?

 **[Athena]:** I'm fine.

Yeah, she'll be fine. Xia Lan shakes her head. Cloudburst is a good guy, and a great teacher, no matter his protests to the contrary. His skills in GLORY are definitely pro-level, and she's picked up dozens of little tips and tricks from him, to the point where Xia Lan almost feels guilty –is it really enough that she's learning everything just in exchange for _rare materials?_ Granted, rare materials could be sold for money nowadays in real-world currency…

 **[Athena]:** It's really nothing, I'm just being stupid. I'll get over it.

 **[Cloudburst]:** … If you're sure, then.

 **[Athena]:** Yes.

 **[Athena]:** :)

It's nice that he's concerned for her, but this is really her fault in the first place; she shouldn't be acting like this, getting unreasonably worked up over nothing. Shadows and shades.

Xia Lan sighs. She seems to be doing that a lot lately. What's next, finding white hairs in the mirror?

"That would be very unfortunate," the girl huffs to herself with a quiet laugh.

After bidding Cloudburst goodbye when he logs off after another round –the man has a part-time job tutoring kids in Mandarin Chinese– Xia Lan heads down to the Arena. Climbing the ranks all over again is tedious, and it's taken her awhile to be listed anywhere close to the top 100 again. Xia Lan is _good,_ not _perfect,_ but she learns from her mistakes; if nothing else, fighting so many different opponents has definitely given her a lot of experience.

Between managing the guild and leading wild boss hunts and organizing dungeon parties and _still_ squeezing out enough time to spar with Cloudburst and PK in the Arena… she really needs to be better at delegating tasks, huh. Something to figure out soon–

Oh, what's this?

 **[SYSTEM]: [Chitter] vs. [Athena]. Players, please prepare. The battle will begin in 30 seconds.**

Huh, imagine getting _this_ match-up from random matching. Wow.

 **[Chitter]:** ! ! !

 **[Chitter]:** O A O

Xia Lan laughs, rapidly typing in her own response.

 **[Athena]:** Hi, Chitter.

 **[Chitter]:** TT A TT

 **[Chitter]:** FML

 **[Athena]:** [Pat][JPG]

 **[Athena]:** Fancy meeting you here. ;3

When the countdown reaches zero, Xia Lan directs Athena forwards without hesitation. Although they've never had an actual match in the Arena, she's had plenty of experience fighting with Chitter in the mad scrambles for wild bosses, so she's fairly familiar with the Battle Mage's habits. She's sure that the same is true in her case for Chitter, too. But whether or not he knows enough to seize advantage of it is another matter entirely.

Chitter is good, make no mistake. He's good, but she happens to be better. It might sound like something high-handed and arrogant to say, but it's the truth. Chitter is a solid player, well-rounded movements and decent strategy, but his control over the details of his character's movements is still rather lacking, and it's what Xia Lan uses against him to take him down, in the end.

 _2:32._

GLORY.

 **[Chitter]:** wtf

 **[Chitter]:** y r u still here i thought you were done with the arena already?

Xia Lan tilts her head, mildly bemused.

 **[Athena]:** ?

 **[Athena]:** Who told you that?

 **[Chitter]:** …

 **[Chitter]:** …

 **[Chitter]:** …

 **[Chitter]:** orz

 **[Chitter]:** well gg i guess

It's a good thing that Chitter is an easygoing person. If it was someone like Klesis here, Xia Lan would've been in for an _earful._

 **[Athena]:** Yes, good game. :)

Then, after an idle heartbeat:

 **[Athena]:** So… find any wild bosses recently?

 **[Chitter]:** NO

The response is swift, prompt, immediate. Near-instantaneous, really, and Xia Lan can't help but laugh at his reaction. Typical Chitter.

 **[Athena]:** Just checking. ;)

 **[Chitter]:** i hate you so much

… They really used to be much better friends back when Xia Lan wasn't the one in charge of the Pantheon. But it's not like Xia Lan can do anything about it; competition is competition, friendship is friendship. Most of the time.

 **[Athena]:** Don't worry, I'll be out of your hair soon enough.

 **[Chitter]:** eh? wait, what?

Xia Lan types out a simple response, smiling.

 **[Athena]:** I'm joining Ares and the others next season, remember?

There is a short pause on the other end.

 **[Chitter]:** right…

 **[Chitter]:** huh

 **[Chitter]:** damn you're going into the big leagues too

 **[Chitter]:** [Thoughtful][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** have u checked in with them tho?

Xia Lan pauses. _Have you checked in with them, though?_ That sounds a little… ominous, the wording?

 **[Athena]:** What do you mean?

 **[Chitter]:** [Fidget][JPG]

 **[Chitter]:** look i don't MEAN mean anything but

 **[Chitter]:** things, change, y'know? people change

 **[Chitter]:** ur team is finally doing pretty good now dunno if they'd want to risk introducing another person and find a new balance again.

Xia Lan thinks about the way the team had been off to a shaky start at the beginning of the tournament, the way they'd had to adjust not only to their own loss, but also to the introduction of a new member –nemesis384. It helped that nemesis384 was also a Blade Master just like Athena, but they were still different players, with different styles and habits.

Even so…

 **[Athena]:** You make a good point, but we've already agreed on this even before the season started.

 **[Athena]:** Besides, I'm still in touch with all of them, too, and no one's said anything like that.

Chitter's reply comes promptly.

 **[Chitter]:** course they won't what do you think ppl are, stupid?

 **[Chitter]:** it's called having some TACT

Xia Lan resists the urge to roll her eyes. Okay, so maybe the team would feel several different shades of awkward if they'd have to bring up _to her face_ that they wouldn't be able to include her into the team after they'd already promised, after she'd spent an entire year running the guild and getting materials and helping Hephaestus with the weapon upgrades. But she wasn't _blind;_ nemesis384 was one thing, but she was pretty certain that she'd be able to spot _Cynthia_ being awkward if Cynthia had something important like that to hide from her.

Besides, if nothing else, she still trusted Jared as a captain, and as a friend, to keep her informed, even if it were to be of bad news.

 **[Chitter]:** not the point

 **[Chitter]:** 'sides, even if ur team is okay with it, there's still management to consider, since u guys r under GF and all

 **[Chitter]:** so if management doesn't want to switch players there's not much u guys can do, right?

 **[Chitter]:** … just saying.

.

* * *

.

…

.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Fifth chapter complete! It's been… three months since the last update? Whoops. Slightly shorter than the usual this time, but I've been sitting on this for awhile. Sorry, I can't guarantee anything about the update schedule, but I'll do my best. :)

On another note, if I remember correctly, the second season of _The King's Avatar_ is slated to come out sometime in 2019, so that's definitely something to keep an eye peeled out for! Fingers crossed for the animation quality being improved as compared to the first season, I guess, if it's still on track to being released…

Also, I can't believe we still haven't gotten to Xia Lan officially joining Team GhostFyre yet. ( **EDIT:** Or maybe I'm TROLLING? xD) Clearly, I ramble too much, and the plot isn't really going anywhere fast without a good, hefty kick… fingers crossed for getting around to it sometime soon, though. (Cries.)

Belated Happy New Year! Anyone feel like sharing their New Year's resolutions? I should probably make one to update more lol. Or, y'know… not. ;3

Till next time,

XxZuiliu


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